Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Heroine
by Andytheawesome
Summary: When Jane Grace wakes up on a bus remembering nothing about her past, she, Peter McLean, and Lee Valdez are in for a wild adventure. This is basically the book with gender bend. If you don't want to re-read the books, don't read. All demigods are op gender. Immortals and myths are not. PAY ATTENTION FOR UPDATES May be some grammatical errors, like not switched pronouns.
1. Chapter one

**A/N: this is my first story and I'm just writing exactly what happened in the first Heroes of Olympus book, but gender bent. I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians characters or Heroes of Olympus characters. All characters belong to Rick Riordan. Everybody will be the opposite gender, except coach hedge and any other satyr, because satyrs are only guys. Enjoy!**

Chapter 1: Jane

Even before she got electrocuted, Jane was having a bad day. She woke up in the back seat of a school bus, not sure where she was, holding hands with a guy she didn't know. That wasn't necessarily the rotten part. The guy was cute, but she couldn't figure out who he was or what she was doing there. She sat up and rubbed her eyes,trying to think. A few dozen kids sprawled in the seats in front of her, listening to IPods, talking, or sleeping. They all looked around her age...fifteen? Sixteeen? Okay, that was scary. She didn't know her own age.

The bus rumbled along a bumpy road. Out the windows, desert rolled by under a bright blue sky. Jane was pretty sure she didn't live in the desert. She tried to think back…the last thing she remembered…

The guy squeezed her hand. "Jane, you okay?"

He wore faded jeans, hiking boots, and a fleece snowboarding jacket. His chocolate brown hair was cut choppy and uneven, with blond highlights on the sides. He wore no elaborate clothes like he was trying not to draw attention to himself, but it didn't work. He was seriously handsome. His eyes seemed to change color like a kaleidoscope-brown, blue, and green. Jane let go of his hand. "I'm, I don't-" In the front of the bus a teacher shouted "All right cupcakes, listen up!"

The guy was obviously a coach. His baseball cap was pulled low over his hair, so you could just see his beady eyes. He had a wispy goatee and a sour face, like he'd eaten something moldy. His buff arms and chest pushed against a bright orange polo shirt. His nylon workout pants and Nikes were spotless white. A whistle hung from his neck, and a megaphone was clipped to his belt. He would've looked pretty scary if he hadn't been five feet zero. When he stood up in the aisle, one of the students called "Stand up, Coach Hedge!"

"I heard that!" The coach scanned the bus for the offender. Then his eyes fixed on Jane and his scowl deepened.

A jolt went down Jane's spine. She was sure the coach knew she didn't belong there. He was gonna call Jane out, demand to know what she was doing on the bus- and Jane wouldn't have a clue what to say. But Coach Hedge looked away and cleared his throat.

"We'll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don't loose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes cause any trouble on this trip, I will personally send you back to campus the hard way."

He picked up a baseball bat and made like he was hitting a homer. Jane looked at the guy next to her.

"Can he talk to us that way?" He shrugged. "Always does. This is the Wilderness School. 'Where kids are the animals'" He said it like a joke they'd shared before.

"This is some kind of mistake." Jane said. "I'm not supposed to be here."

The girl in front of her turned and laughed. "Yeah, right, Jane. We've all been framed! I didn't run away six times. Peter didn't steel a BMW." The boy blushed and scowled.

"I didn't steel that car, Lee!"

"Oh, I forgot, Peter. What was your story? You 'talked' the dealer into lending it to you?" She raised her eyebrows at Jane like, Can you believe him? Lee looked like a Latina Santa's elf, with curly black hair, pointy ears, a cheerful, babyish face, and a mischievous smile that told you right away that this girl should not be trusted around matches or sharp objects. Her long, nimble fingers wouldn't stop moving- drumming on the seat, sweeping her hair behind her ears, fiddling with the buttons of her army fatigue jacket. Either the kid was natura hyper or she was hopped up on enough auger and caffeine to give a heart attack to a water buffalo.

"Anyway," Lee said, "I hope you've got your worksheet, 'cause I used mine for spit wads days ago. Why are you looking at me like that? Somebody draw on my face again?"

"I don't know you," Jane said. Lee gave her a crocodile grin.

"Sure. I'm not your best friend. I'm her evil clone." "Lee Valdez!" Coach Hedge yelled from the front. "Problem back there?" Lee winked at Jane.

"Watch this." She turned to the front. "Sorry, Coach! I was having trouble hearing you. Could you use your megaphone, pLeese?" Coach Hedge grunted like he was pLeesed to have an excuse. He unclipped the megaphone from his belt and continued giving directions, but his voice came out like Darth Vader's. The kids cracked up. The coach tried again, but this time the megaphone blared: "The cow says moo!"

The kids howled, and the coach slammed down the megaphone. "Valdez!" Peter stifled a laugh. "My god, Lee. How did you do that?" Lee slipped a tiny Phillips head screwdriver from her sleeve. "I'm a special girl." "Guys, seriously." Jane pLeeded. "What am I doing here? Where are we going?"

Peter knit his eyebrows.

"Jane, are you joking?"

"No! I have no idea-" "Aw, yeah, she's joking," Lee said. "She's trying to get back at me for that shaving cream on the Jell-O thing, aren't you?"

Jane stared at her blankly.

"No, I think she's serious." Peter tried to take her hand again, but she pulled it away. "I'm sorry," she said. "I don't- I can't-"

"That's it!" Coach Hedge yelled from the front. "The back row has just volunteered to cLeen up after lunch!" The rest of the kids cheered. "There's a shocker," Lee muttered. But Peter kept his eyes on Jane, like he couldn't decide whether to be hurt or worried. "Did you hit your head or something? You really don't know who we are?" Jane shrugged helplessly.

"It's worse than that. I don't know who I am."

 **A/N**

 **Ok guys so chapter one of the book is pretty long so I think I'm gonna split it up into four of these chapters so that the chapter isn't too long. Please review if you don't mind!!**


	2. Chapter two (06-16 08:29:38)

**A/N: Hi! Last we left off, Jane, Peter, and Lee were on the bus. If you didn't notice, Jane is Jason, Peter is Piper, and Lee is Leo. Enjoy!**

 **I dont own any of the characters or plot lines in this story. All of them belong to Rick Riordan.**

Chapter 2: Jane

The bus dropped them in front of a big red stucco complex like a museum, just sitting in the middle of nowhere. Maybe that's just what it was: the National Museum of Nowhere, Jane thought. A cold wind blew across the desert. Jane hadn't paid much attention to what she was wearing, but it wasn't nearly warm enough: skinny jeans and sneakers, a purple T-shirt, and a thin black windbreaker.

"So, a crash course for the amnesic," Lee said, in a helpful tone that made Jane think this was not going to be helpful.

"We go to the 'Wilderness School'"-- Lee made air quotes with her fingers. "Which means we're 'bad kids'. Your family, or the court, or whoever, decided you were too much trouble , so they shipped you off to a lovely prison-- sorry, 'boarding school'-- in Armpit, Nevada, where you learn valuable nature skills like running ten miles a day through the cacti and weaving daisies into hats! And for a special treat we go on 'educational' field trips with Coach Hedge, who keeps order with a baseball bat. Is it all coming back to you now?"

"No." Jane glanced apprehensively at the other kids; maybe twenty girls, half that many guys. None of them looked like hardened criminals, but he wondered what they'd all done to get sentenced to a school for delinquents, and she wondered why she belonged with them. Lee rolled her eyes. "You're really gonna play this out, huh? Okay, so the three of us started here this semester. We're totally tight. You do everything I say and give me your dessert and do my chores--"

"Lee!" Peter snapped.

"Fine. Ignore that last part. But we are friends. Well, Peter's a little more than your friend, the last few weeks--"

"Lee, stop it!" Peter's face turned red. Jane could feel her face burning too. She thought she would remember if she'd been going out with a guy like Peter.

"She's got amnesia or something," Peter said. "We've got to tell somebody." Lee scoffed.

"Who, Coach Hedge? He'd try to fix Jane by whacking her upside the head"

The coach was at the front of the group, barking orders and blowing his whistle to keep the kids in line; but ever so often he'd glance back at Jane and scowl.

"Lee, Jane needs help," Peter insisted. "She's got a concussion or--"

"Hey, Peter." One of the other girls dropped back to join them as the group was heading towards the museum. The new girl wedged herself between Jane and Peter and knocked Lee down.

"Don't talk to these bottom feeders. You're my partner, remember?" The new girl had dark hair put up tinker-bell style, a deep tan, and teeth so white she should've come with a warning label: DO NOT STARE DIRECTLY AT TEETH. PERMANENT BLINDNESS MAY OCCUR. She wore a short Dallas Cowboys crop top, Western jeans and boots, and she smiled like she was God's gift to juvenile delinquent boys everywhere. Jane hated her instantly.

"Go away, Daniella." Peter grumbled. "I didn't ask to work with you." "Ah, that's no way to be. This is your lucky day!" Daniella hooked her arm through his and dragged him through the museum entrance. Peter shot one last look over her shoulder like, _911_. Lee got up and brushed herself off.

"I hate that girl." She offered Jane her arm, like they should go skipping inside together. "I'm Daniella. I'm so cool, I want to date myself but I can't figure out how too! You want to date me instead? You're so lucky!"

"Lee," Jane said, "you're weird."

"Yeah, you tell me that a lot." Lee grinned. "But if you don't remember me, that means I can reuse all my old jokes. Come on!" Jane figured that if this was her best friend, her life must be pretty messed up; but she followed Lee into the museum.

A/N: hi again. Please review!


	3. Chapter three

**A/N: I don't own Percy Jackson or Heroes of Olympus.**

 **Chapter three: Jane**

They walked through the building, stopping here and there for Coach Hedge to lecture them with his megaphone, which alternately made him sound like a Sith Lord or blared out random comments like "The pig says oink." Lee kept pulling out nuts, bolts, and pipe cleaners from the pockets of her army jacket and putting them together, like she had to keep her hands busy at all times. Jane was too distracted to pay much attention to the exhibits, but they were about the Grant Canyon and the Hualapai tribe, which owned the museum. Some boys kept looking over at Peter and snickering. Jane figured these guys were the popular clique. They wore matching letterman jackets and all wore the same brand of jeans. One of them said "Hey, Peter, does your tribe run this place? Do you get in free if you do a rain dance?"

The other guys laughed. Even Peter's so-called partner Daniella suppressed a smile. Peter's snowboarding jacket sleeves his his hands, but Jane got the feeling he was clenching his fists.

"My dad's Cherokee," he said. "Not Hauapapai. 'Course, you'd need a few brain cells to know the difference, Isaac." Isaac widened his eyes in mock surprise and put his hands on his cheeks, like _oh no! What am I going to do?!_

"Oh, sorry! Was your _mom_ in this tribe? Oh, that's right. You never knew your mom." Peter charged him, but before a fight could start, Coach Hedge barked, "Enough back there! Set a good example or I'll break out my baseball bat!"

The group shuffled on to the next exhibit, but the boys kept calling out little comments to Peter.

"Good to be back on the Rez?" one asked in a mocking tone.

"Dad's probably too drunk to work," another said with fake sympathy. "That's why he turned klepto." Peter ignored them, but Jane was ready to punch them herself. She might not remember Peter, or even who she was, but she knew she hated mean kids.

Lee caught her arm. "Be cool. Peter doesn't like us fighting his battles. Besides, if all those guys found out the truth about his dad, they'd all be bowing down to him and screaming 'We're not worthy!'"

"Why? What about his dad?"

Lee laughed in disbelief. "You're not kidding? You really don't remember that your boyfriend's dad-"

"Look, I wish I did, but I don't even remember _him_ , much less his dad."

Lee whistled. "Whatever. We _have_ to talk when we get back to the dorm."

They reached the far end of the exhibit hall, where some big glass doors led out to a terrace.

"All right, cupcakes," Coach Hedge announced. "You are about to see the Grand Canyon. Try not to break it. The skywalk can hold the weight of seventy jumbo jets, so you featherweights should be safe out there. If possible, try to avoid pushing each other over the edge, as that would cause me extra paperwork."

The coach opened the doors, and they all stepped outside. The Grand Canyon spread before them, live and in person. Extending over the edge was a horseshoe-shaped walkway made of glass, so you could see right through it.

"Man," Lee said. "That's pretty wicked."

Jane had to agree. Despite her amnesia and her feeling that she didn't belong there, she couldn't help being impressed.

The Canyon was bigger and wider than you could appreciate from a picture. They were so high that birds circled below their feet. Five hundred feet down, a river snaked along the Canyon floor. Banks of storm clouds had moved overhead while they were inside, casting shadows like angry faces across the cliffs. As far as Jane could see in any direction, red and gray ravines cut through the desert, like some crazy god had taken a knife to it.

Jane got a piercing pain behind her eyes. _Crazy gods..._ Where had she come up with that idea? She felt like she'd gotten close to something important-something she should know about. She also got the unmistakable feeling she was in danger.

"You all right?" Lee asked. "You're not going to throw up over the side, are you? 'Cause I should've brought my camera."

Jane grabbed the railing. She was shivering and sweaty, but it had nothing to do with heights. She blinked and the pain in the eyes subsided.

"I'm fine," she managed. "Just a headache."

Thunder rumbled overhead. A cold wind almost knocked her sideways.

"This can't be safe." Lee squinted at the clouds.

"Storm's right over us, but it's clear all the way around. Weird, huh?"

Jane looked up and saw Lee was right. A dark circle of clouds had parked itself over the sidewalk, but the rest of the sky in every direction was perfectly clear. Jane had a bad feeling about that.

"All right, cupcakes!" Coach Hedge yelled. He frowned at the storm like it bothered him too. "We may have to cut this short, so get to work! Remember, complete sentences!"

The storm rumbled, and Jane's head began to hurt again. Not knowing why she did it, she reached into her jeans pocket and brought out a coin-a circle of gold the size of a half-dollar, but thicker and more uneven. Stamped on one side was a picture of a battle-ax. On the other was some guy's face wreathed in laurels. The inscription said something like IVLIVS.

"Dang, girl. Is that gold?" Lee said. "You've been holding out on me!"

Jane put the coin away, wondering how she'd come to have it, and why she had the feeling she was going to need it soon.

"It's nothing," she said. "Just a coin."

Lee shrugged. Maybe her mind had to keep moving as much as her hands. "Come on," she said. "Dare you to spit over the edge."


	4. Chapter four

**A/N: I do not own Percy Jackson or Heroes of Olympus. **

**Chapter four: Jane**

They didn't try very hard on the worksheet. For one thing, Jane was too distracted by the storm and her own mixed-up feelings. For another thing, she didn't have any idea how to "name three sedimentary strata you observe" or "describe two examples of erosion".

Lee was no help. She was too busy building a helicopter out of pipe cleaners.

"Check it out." She launched the copter. Jane figured it would plummet, but the pipe cleaner blades actually spun the little copter made it halfway across the canyon before it lost momentum and spiraled into the void.

"How'd you do that?" Jane asked.

Lee shrugged. "Would've been cooler if I had some rubber bands."

"Seriously," Jane said, "are we friends?"

"Last I checked."

"You sure? What was the first day we met? What did we talk about?"

"It was..." Lee frowned. "I don't remember exactly. Girl, I'm ADHD. You can't expect me to remember details."

"But I don't remember you _at all._ I don't remember anyone here. What if-"

"You're right and everyone also is wrong?" Lee asked.

"You think you just appeared here this morning, and we've all got fake memories of you?"

A little voice in Jane's head said, _That's exactly what I think._ But it sounded crazy. Everybody here took her for granted. Everyone acted like she was a normal part of the class- except for Coach Hedge.

"Take the worksheet." Jane handed Lee the paper.

"I'll be right back."

Before Lee could protest, Jane headed across the skywalk.

Their school group had the place to themselves. Maybe it was too early in the day for tourists, or maybe the weird weather had scare them off. The Wilderness School kids had spread out in pairs across the skywalk. Most were joking around or talking. Some of the guys were dropping pennies over the side. About fifty feet away, Peter was trying to fill out his worksheet, but his stupid partner Daniella was hitting on him, putting heralds around his waist and giving him that blinding white smile. He kept pushing her away, and when he saw Jane he gave her a look like, _knock her off the edge for me._ Jane motioned for him to hold on. She walked up to Coach Hedge, who was leaning on his baseball bat, studying the storm clouds.

"Did you do this?" the coach asked him.

Jane took a step back. "Do what?" It sounded like the coach had just asked if she'd made the thunderstorm.

Coach Hedge glared at her, his beady little eyes glinting under the brim of his cap.

"Don't play games with me, kid. What are you doing here, and why are you messing up my job?"

"You mean…you don't know me?" Jane said. "I'm not one of your students?"

Hedge snorted. "Never seen you before today."

Jane was so relieved she almost wanted to cry. At least she wasn't going insane. She was in the wrong place. "Look, sir, I don't know how I got here. I just woke up on the school bus. All I know is I'm not supposed to be here."

"Got that right." Hedge's gruff voice dropped to a murmur, like he was sharing a secret. "You got a powerful way with the Mist, kid, if you can make all these people think they know you; but you can't fool me. I've been smelling monster for days now. I knew we had an infiltrator, but you don't smell like a monster. You smell like a half-blood. So—who are you, and where'd you come from?"

Most of what the coach said didn't make sense, but Jane decided to answer honestly. "I don't know who I am. I don't have any memories. You've got to help me."

Coach Hedge studied her face like he was trying to read Jane's thoughts.

"Great," Hedge muttered. "You're being truthful."

"Of course I am! And what was all that about monsters and half-bloods? Are those code words or something?"

Hedge narrowed his eyes. Part of Jane wondered if the guy was just nuts. But the other part knew better.

"Look, kid," Hedge said, "I don't know who you are. I just know what you are, and it means trouble. Now I got to protect three of you rather than two. Are you the special package? Is that it?"

"What are you talking about?"

Hedge looked at the storm. The clouds were getting thicker and darker, hovering right over the skywalk.

"This morning," Hedge said, "I got a message from camp. They said an extraction team is on the way. They're coming to pick up a special package, but they wouldn't give me details. I thought to myself, Fine. The two I'm watching are pretty powerful, older than most. I know they're being stalked. I can smell a monster in the group. I figure that's why that's why the camp is suddenly frantic to pick them up. But then _you_ pop up out of nowhere. So, are you the special package?"

The pain behind Jane's eyes got worse than ever. _Half-bloods. Camp. Monsters_. She still didn't know what Hedge was talking about, but the words gave her a massive brain freeze—like her mind was trying to access information that should've been there but wasn't.

She stumbled, and Coach Hedge caught her. For a short guy, the coach had hands like steel. "Whoa, there, cupcake. You say you got no memories, huh? Fine. I'll just have to watch you, too, until the team gets here. We'll let the director figure things out."

"What director?" Jane said. "What camp?"

"Just sit tight. Reinforcements should be here soon. Hopefully nothing happens before—"

Lightning crackled overhead. The wind picked up with a vengeance. Worksheets flew into the Grand Canyon, and the entire bridge shuddered. Kids screamed, stumbling and grabbing the rails.

"I had to say something," Hedge grumbled. He bellowed into his megaphone: "Everyone inside! The cow says moo! Off the skywalk!"

"I thought you said this thing was stable!" Jane shouted over the wind.

"Under normal circumstances," Hedge agreed, "which these aren't. Come on!""

 **A/N: Cliffhanger!! Review and tell me how you like the story so far.**


	5. Chapter five

**A/N: I do not own any of the characters or plot lines in this story other than their gender switched names. All of the rest belongs to Rick Riordan.**

 **Chapter five: Jane**

The storm churned into a miniature hurricane. Funnel clouds snaked toward the skywalk like the tendrils of a monster jellyfish.

Kids screamed and ran for the building. The wind snatched away their notebooks, jackets, hats, and backpacks. Jane skidded across the slick floor.

Lee lost his balance and almost toppled over the railing, but Jane grabbed his jacket and pulled him back.

"Thanks!" Lee yelled.

"Go, go, go!" said Coach Hedge.

Peter and Daniella were holding the doors open, herding the other kids inside. Peter's snowboarding jacket was flapping wildly, hit dark hair all in her face.

Jane thought he must've been freezing, but he looked calm and confident—telling the others it would be okay, encouraging them to keep moving.

Jane, Lee, and Coach Hedge ran toward them, but it was like running through quicksand. The wind seemed to fight them, pushing them back.

Daniella and Peter pushed one more kid inside, then lost their grip on the doors. They slammed shut, closing off the skywalk.

Peter tugged at the handles. Inside, the kids pounded on the glass, but the doors seemed to be stuck. "Daniella, help!" Peter shouted.

Daniella just stood there with an idiotic grin, her hair waving in the wind, like she was suddenly enjoying the storm."

"Sorry, Peter," she said. "I'm done helping."

She flicked her wrist, and Peter flew backward, slamming into the doors and sliding to the skywalk deck.

"Peter!" Jane tried to charge forward, but the wind was against her, and Coach Hedge pushed her back.

"Coach," Jane said, "let me go!"

"Jane, Lee , stay behind me," the coach ordered. "This is my fight. I should've known that was our monster."

"What?" Lee demanded. A rogue worksheet slapped her in the face, but she swatted it away. "What monster?"

The coach's cap blew off, and sticking up above his curly hair were two bumps—like the knots cartoon characters get when they're bonked on the head. Coach Hedge lifted his baseball bat—but it wasn't a regular bat anymore. Somehow it had changed into a crudely shaped tree-branch club, with twigs and leaves still attached.

Daniella gave him that psycho happy smile. "Oh, come on, Coach. Let the girl attack me! After all, you're getting too old for this. Isn't that why they retired you to this stupid school? I've been on your team the entire season, and you didn't even know. You're losing your nose, grandpa."

The coach made an angry sound like an animal bleating. "That's it, cupcake. You're going down."

"You think you can protect three half-bloods at once, old man?" Daniella laughed. "Good luck."

Daniella pointed at Lee, and a funnel cloud materialized around her. Lee flew off the skywalk like she'd been tossed. Somehow she managed to twist in midair, and slammed sideways into the canyon wall. She skidded, clawing furiously for any handhold. Finally she grabbed a thin ledge about fifty feet below the skywalk and hung there by her fingertips.

"Help!" she yelled up at them. "Rope, please? Bungee cord? Something?"

Coach Hedge cursed and tossed Jane his club. "I don't know who you are, kid, but I hope you're good. Keep that thing busy"—he stabbed a thumb at Daniella —"while I get Lee ."

"Get her how?" Jane demanded. "You going to fly?"

"Not fly. Climb." Hedge kicked off his shoes, and Jane almost had a coronary. The coach didn't have any feet. He had hooves—goat's hooves. Which meant those things on his head, Jane realized, weren't bumps. They were horns.

"You're a faun," Jane said.

"Satyr!" Hedge snapped. "Fauns are Roman. But we'll

talk about that later."

Hedge leaped over the railing. He sailed toward the canyon wall and hit hooves first. He bounded down the cliff with impossible agility, finding footholds no bigger than postage stamps, dodging whirlwinds that tried to attack him as he picked his way toward Lee.

"Isn't that cute!" Daniella turned toward Jane. "Now it's your turn, girl."

Jane threw the club. It seemed useless with the winds so strong, but the club flew right at Daniella, even

curving when she tried to dodge, and smacked her on the head so hard she fell to her knees.

Peter wasn't as dazed as he appeared. His fingers closed around the club when it rolled next to him, but before he could use it, Daniella rose. Blood—golden blood—trickled from her forehead.

"Nice try, girl." She glared at Jason. "But you'll have to do better."

The skywalk shuddered. Hairline fractures appeared in the glass. Inside the museum, kids stopped banging on the doors. They backed away, watching in terror.

Daniella's body dissolved into smoke, as if her molecules were coming unglued. She had the same face, the same brilliant white smile, but her whole form was suddenly composed of swirling black vapor, her eyes like electrical sparks in a living storm cloud. She sprouted black smoky wings and rose above the skywalk. If angels could be evil, Jane decided, they would look exactly like this.

"You're a ventus," Jane said, though she had no idea how she knew that word. "A storm spirit."

Daniella's laugh sounded like a tornado tearing off a roof. "I'm glad I waited, demigod. Lee and Peter, I've known about for weeks. Could've killed them at any time. But my master said a third was coming—someone special. He'll reward me greatly for your death!"

Two more funnel clouds touched down on either side of Daniella and turned into venti—ghostly young men with smoky wings and eyes that flickered with lightning.

Peter stayed down, pretending to be dazed, his hand still gripping the club. His face was pale, but he gave Jane a determined look, and she understood the message: Keep their attention. I'll brain them from behind.

Handsome, smart, and violent. Jane wished she remembered having him as a boyfriend .


	6. Chapter six

**A/N: I don't own Percy Jackson or Heroes of Olympus. They both belong to Rick Riordan. :(**

 **Chapter six: Jane**

Jane clenched her fists and got ready to charge, but she never got a chance.

Daniella raised her hand, arcs of electricity running between her fingers, and blasted Jane in the chest.

 _Bang_! Jane found himself flat on her back. Her mouth tasted like burning aluminum foil. She lifted her head and saw that her clothes were smoking. The lightning bolt had gone straight though her body and blasted off her left shoe. Her toes were black with soot.

The storm spirits were laughing. The winds raged. Peter was screaming defiantly, but it all sounded tinny and far away. Out of the corner of her eye, Jane saw Coach Hedge climbing the cliff with Lee on his back. Peter was on his feet, desperately swinging the club to fend off the two extra storm spirits, but they were just toying with him. The club went right through their bodies like they weren't there. And Daniella, a dark and winged tornado with eyes, loomed over Jane.

"Stop," Jane croaked. She rose unsteadily to her feet, and she wasn't sure who was more surprised: her, or the storm spirits.

"How are you alive?" Daniella's form flickered. "That was enough lightning to kill twenty men!"

"My turn," Jane said.

She reached in her pocket and pulled out the gold coin. She let her instincts take over, flipping the coin in the air like she'd done it a thousand times. She caught it in her palm, and suddenly she was holding a sword—a wickedly sharp double-edged weapon. The ridged grip fit her fingers perfectly, and the whole thing was gold—hilt, handle, and blade.

Daniella snarled and backed up. She looked at his two comrades and yelled, "Well? Kill him!"

The other storm spirits didn't look happy with that order, but they flew at Jane, their fingers crackling with electricity. Jane swung at the first spirit. Her blade passed through it, and the creature's smoky form disintegrated. The second spirit let loose a bolt of lightning, but Jane's blade absorbed the charge. Jane stepped in—one quick thrust, and the second storm spirit dissolved into gold powder.

Daniella wailed in outrage. She looked down as if expecting her comrades to re-form, but their gold dust remains dispersed in the wind. "Impossible! Who are you, half-blood?"

Peter was so stunned he dropped his club. "Jane, how…?"

Then Coach Hedge leaped back onto the skywalk and dumped Lee like a sack of flour.

"Spirits, fear me!" Hedge bellowed, flexing his short arms. Then he looked around and realized there was only Daniella .

"Curse it, Half-blood!" he snapped at Jane. "Didn't you leave some for me? I like a challenge!"

Lee got to her feet, breathing hard. She looked completely humiliated, her hands bleeding from clawing at the rocks. "Hey, Coach Supergoat, whatever you are—I just fell down the freaking Grand Canyon! Stop asking for challenges!"

Daniella hissed at them, but Jane could see fear in her eyes. "You have no idea how many enemies you've awakened, half-bloods. My master will destroy all demigods. This war you cannot win."

Above them, the storm exploded into a full-force gale. Cracks expanded in the skywalk. Sheets of rain poured down, and Jane had to crouch to keep her balance.

A hole opened in the clouds—a swirling vortex of black and silver.

"The master calls me back!" Daniella shouted with glee. "And you, demigod, will come with me!"

She lunged at Jane, but Peter tackled the monster from behind. Even though she was made of smoke, Peter somehow managed to connect. Both of them went sprawling. Lee, Jane, and the coach surged forward to help, but the spirit screamed with rage. She let loose a torrent that knocked them all backward. Jane and Coach Hedge landed on their butts. Jane's sword skidded across the glass. Lee hit the back of her head and curled on her side, dazed and groaning. Peter got the worst of it. He was thrown off Daniella's back and hit the railing, tumbling over the side until he was hanging by one hand over the abyss.

Jane started toward her, but Daniella screamed, "I'll settle for this one!"

She grabbed Lee's arm and began to rise, towing a half-conscious Lee below her. The storm spun faster, pulling them upward like a vacuum cleaner.

"Help!" Peter yelled. "Somebody!"

Then he slipped, screaming as he fell.

"Jane, go!" Hedge yelled. "Save him!"

The coach launched himself at the spirit with some serious goat fu—lashing out with his hooves, knocking Lee free from the spirit's grasp. Lee dropped safely to the floor, but Daniella grappled the coach's arms instead. Hedge tried to head-butt her, then kicked her and called her a cupcake. They rose into the air, gaining speed.

Coach Hedge shouted down once more, "Save him! I got this!" Then the satyr and the storm spirit spiraled into the clouds and disappeared.

 _Save him?_ Jason thought. _He's l gone!_

But again her instincts won. She ran to the railing, thinking, _I'm a lunatic,_ and jumped over the side.

 **A/N: hi! Please review and tell me what you think. Thanks!**


	7. Chapter seven

**A/N: This is the seventh chapter! I'm actually quite proud of myself for not stoping. Rick Riordan owns both Percy Jackson and The Olympians and Heroes of Olympus.**

 **Chapter seven : Jane**

Jane wasn't scared of heights. She was scared of being smashed against the canyon floor five hundred feet below. She figured she hadn't accomplished anything except for dying along with Peter, but she tucked in her arms and plummeted headfirst. The sides of the canyon raced past like a film on fast-forward. Her face felt like it was peeling off.

In a heartbeat, she caught up with Peter, who was

flailing wildly. She tackled his waist and closed her eyes, waiting for death. Peter screamed. The wind whistled in Jane's ears. She wondered what dying would feel like. She was thinking, probably not so good. She wished somehow they could never hit bottom.

Suddenly the wind died. Peter's scream turned into a haggard breath. Jane thought they must be dead, but she hadn't felt any impact.

"J-Jane," Peter managed.

She opened her eyes. They weren't falling. They were floating in midair, a hundred feet above the river.

She hugged Peter tight, and he repositioned himself so he was hugging her too. They were nose to nose. His heart beat so hard, Jane could feel it through her clothes.

His breath smelled like mint. He said, "How did you—"

"I didn't," she said. "I think I would know if I could fly.…"

But then she thought: _I don't even know who I am._

She imagined going up. Peter gave a small scream as they shot a few feet higher. They weren't exactly floating, Jane decided. She could feel pressure under her feet like they were balancing at the top of a geyser.

"The air is supporting us," she said.

"Well, tell it to support us more! Get us out of here!"

Peter demanded of his supposed girlfriend.

Jane looked down. The easiest thing would be to sink gently to the canyon floor. Then she looked up. The rain had stopped. The storm clouds didn't seem as bad, but they were still rumbling and flashing. There was no guarantee the spirits were gone for good. She had no idea what had happened to Coach Hedge, and he'd left Lee up there, barely conscious.

"We have to help them," Peter said, as if reading his thoughts. "Can you—"

"Let's see." Jane thought _Up_ , and instantly they shot skyward.

The fact she was riding the winds might've been cool under different circumstances, but she was too much in shock. As soon as they landed on the skywalk, they ran to Lee.

Peter turned Lee over, and she groaned. Her army coat was soaked from the rain. Her curly, black hair glittered gold from rolling around in monster dust. But at least she wasn't dead.

"Stupid…ugly…goat...dude," she muttered.

"Where did he go?" Peter asked.

Lee pointed straight up. "Never came down. Please tell me he didn't actually save my life."

"Twice," Jane said.

Lee groaned even louder. "What happened? The tornado guy, the gold sword…I hit my head. That's it, right? I'm hallucinating?"

Jane had forgotten about the sword. She walked over to where it was lying and picked it up. The blade was well balanced. On a hunch she flipped it. Midspin, the sword shrank back into a coin and landed in her palm.

"Yep," Lee said. "Definitely hallucinating."

Peter shivered in his rain-soaked clothes. "Jane, those things—"

"Venti," she said. "Storm spirits."

"Okay. You acted like…like you'd seen them before…

Who _are_ you?"

She shook her head. "That's what I've been trying to tell you. I don't know."

The storm dissipated. The other kids from the Wilderness School were staring out the glass doors in horror. Security guards were working on the locks now, but they didn't seem to be having any luck.

"Coach Hedge said he had to protect three people," Jane remembered. "I think he meant us."

"And that thing Daniella turned into…" Peter shuddered and shook his head.

"God, I can't believe it was hitting on me. She called us…what, demigods?"

Lee lay on her back, staring at the sky. She didn't seem anxious to get up.

"Don't know what demi means," she said. "But I'm not feeling too godly. You guys feeling godly?"

There was a brittle sound like dry twigs snapping, and the cracks in the skywalk began to widen.

"We need to get off this thing," Jane said. "Maybe if we—"

"Ohhh-kay," Lee interrupted. "Look up there and tell me if those are flying horses."

At first Jane thought Lee had hit her head too hard. Then she saw a dark shape descending from the east—too slow for a plane, too large for a bird. As it got closer he could see a pair of winged animals—gray, four-legged, exactly like horses—except each one had a twenty-foot wingspan. And they were pulling a brightly painted box with two wheels: a chariot.

"Reinforcements," she said. "Hedge told me an extraction squad was coming for us."

"Extraction squad?" Lee struggled to her feet. "That sounds painful."

"And where are they extracting us to?" Peter asked.

Jane watched as the chariot landed on the far end of the skywalk. The flying horses tucked in their wings and cantered nervously across the glass, as if they sensed it was near breaking. Two teenagers stood in the chariot—a tall blond guy maybe a little older than Jane, and a bulky girl with a half shaved head and a face like a pile of bricks. They both wore jeans and orange T-shirts, with shields tossed over their backs. The boy leaped off before the chariot had even finished moving. He pulled a knife and ran toward Jason's group while the bulky girl was reining in the horses.

"Where is she?" the boy demanded. His gray eyes were fierce and a little startling.

"Where's who?" Jane asked.

He frowned like her answer was unacceptable. Then he turned to Lee and Peter.

"What about Gleeson? Where is your protector, Gleeson Hedge?"

The coach's first name was Gleeson? Jane might've laughed if the morning hadn't been quite so weird and scary. Gleeson Hedge: football coach, goat man, protector of demigods. Sure. Why not?

Lee cleared her throat.

"He got taken by some…tornado things."

" _Venti_ ," Jane said. "Storm spirits."

The blond dude arched an eyebrow. "You mean _anemoi thuellai?_ That's the Greek term. Who are you, and what happened?"

Jane did his best to explain, though it was hard to meet those intense gray eyes. About halfway through the story, the other person from the chariot came over. She stood there glaring at them, her arms crossed. She had a tattoo of a rainbow on his biceps, which seemed a little unusual for a girl of her size and intimidation.

When Jane had finished her story, the blond didn't look satisfied. "No, no, no! She told me she would be here. She told me if I came here, I'd find the answer."

"Arthur," the edgy-looking female grunted. "Check it out." He pointed at Jane's feet.

Jane hadn't thought much about it, but she was still missing her left shoe, which had been blown off by the lightning. Her bare foot felt okay, but it looked like a lump of charcoal.

"The girl with one shoe," said the bulky girl. "She's the answer."

"No, Blaire," the guy insisted. "She can't be. I was tricked." He glared at the sky as though it had done something wrong.

"What do you want from me?" He screamed. "What have you done with her?"

The skywalk shuddered, and the horses whinnied urgently.

"Arthur," said the newly proclaimed Blaire "we gotta leave. Let's get these three to camp and figure it out there. Those storm spirits might come back."

He fumed for a moment. "Fine." He fixed Jane with a resentful look. "We'll settle this later."

He turned on his heel and marched toward the chariot.

Peter shook his head. "What's his problem? What's going on?"

"Seriously," Lee agreed.

"We have to get you out of here," Blaire said. "I'll explain on the way."

"I'm not going anywhere with him." Jane gestured toward the blonde. "He looks like he wants to kill me."

Blaire hesitated. "Arthur's okay. You gotta cut him some slack. He had a vision telling him to come here, to find a girl with one shoe. That was supposed to be the answer to his problem."

"What problem?" Peter asked.

"He's been looking for one of our campers, who's been missing three days," Butch said. "He's going out of his mind with worry. He hoped she'd be here."

"Who?" Jason asked.

"His girlfriend," Butch said. "A girl named Paige Jackson."

 **A/N: Heeeeey! Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I've been kinda busy, what with a month long camp and a bunch of other stuff. I think this was my longest chapter? I don't really have word count on this thing. Please tell me if you see any mistakes. Comment on stuff. I kinda need it!**


	8. Chapter eight

**A/N: BTW the past seven chapters were actually the first two chapters in the actual book. Sorry if u guys dont find this interesting, or if you don't think this is original because it's already a book, but I like it and that's what matters. Again, please review and comment. I do not own Percy jackson or HoO. This is the last time I am making this comment.  Thanks!**

 **Chapter 8: Peter**

After a morning of storm spirits, goat men, and flying girlfriends, Peter should've been losing his mind. Instead, all he felt was dread.

 _It's starting,_ he thought. Just like the dream said.

He stood in back of the chariot with Lee and Jane, while the other girl, Blaire, handled the reins, and the blond guy, Arthur, adjusted a bronze navigation device. They rose over the Grand Canyon and headed east, icy wind ripping straight through Peter's jacket. Behind them, more storm clouds were gathering.

The chariot lurched and bumped. It had no seat belts and the back was wide open, so Peter wondered if Jane would catch him again if he fell (not that he would want her to. It might harm his guy-cred). 

That had been the most disturbing part of the morning—not that Jane could fly, but that she'd held him in her arms, and yet didn't know who he was.

All semester he'd worked on a relationship, trying to get Jane to notice him as more than a friend. Finally he'd gotten up the courage to kiss her. The last few weeks had been the best of his life. And then, three nights ago, the dream had ruined everything—that horrible voice, giving him horrible news. He hadn't told anyone about it, not even Jane .

Now he didn't even have _her_. It was like someone had wiped her memory, and he was stuck in the worst "do over" of all time. He wanted to scream. Jane stood right next to him: those sky blue eyes, close-cropped blond hair, that cute little scar on her upper lip. Her face was kind and gentle, but always a little sad. And she just stared at the horizon, not even noticing him.

Meanwhile, Lee was being annoying, as usual.

"This is so cool!" She spit a pegasus feather out of her mouth. "Where are we going?"

"A safe place," Arthur said. "The only safe place for kids like us. Camp Half-Blood."

"Half-Blood?" Peter was immediately on guard. He hated that word. He'd been called a half-blood too many times—half Cherokee, half white—and it was never a compliment.

"Is that some kind of bad joke?"

"He means we're demigods," Jane said.

"Half god, half mortal." 

Arthur looked back. "You seem to know a lot, Jane. But, yes, demigods. My mom is Athena, goddess of wisdom. Blaire here is the daughter of Iris, the rainbow goddess."

Lee choked. "Your mom is a rainbow goddess?"

"Got a problem with that?" Blaire said. 

"No, no," Lee said. "Rainbows. Very intimidating."

"Blaire is our best equestrian," Arthur said. "She gets along great with the pegasi."

"Rainbows, ponies," Lee muttered.

"I'm gonna toss you off this chariot," Blaire warned."

"Demigods," Peter said. "You mean you think …you think we're—"

Lightning flashed. The chariot shuddered, and Jane yelled, "Left wheel's on fire!"

Peter stepped back. Sure enough, the wheel was burning, white flames lapping up the side of the chariot.

The wind roared. Peter glanced behind them and saw dark shapes forming in the clouds, more storm spirits spiraling toward the chariot—except these looked more like horses than angels.

He started to say, "Why are they—"

" _Anemoi_ come in different shapes," Arthur said. 

"Sometimes human, sometimes stallions, depending on how chaotic they are. Hold on. This is going to get rough."

Blaire flicked the reins. The pegasi put on a burst of speed, and the chariot blurred. Piper's stomach crawled into her throat. Her vision went black, and when it came back to normal, they were in a totally different place.

A cold gray ocean stretched out to the left. Snow-covered fields, roads, and forests spread to the right. Directly below them was a green valley, like an island of springtime, rimmed with snowy hills on three sides and water to the north. Peter saw a cluster of buildings like ancient Greek temples, a big blue mansion, ball courts, a lake, and a climbing wall that seemed to be on fire. But before he could really process all he was seeing, their wheels came off and the chariot dropped out of the sky.

Arthur and Blaire tried to maintain control. The pegasi labored to hold the chariot in a flight pattern, but they seemed exhausted from their burst of speed, and bearing the chariot and the weight of five people was just too much.

"The lake!" Arthur yelled. "Aim for the lake!"

Peter remembered something his dad had once told him, about hitting water from up high being as bad as hitting cement. 

And then— **BOOM**.

The biggest shock was the cold. He was underwater, so disoriented that he didn't know which way was up.

He just had time to think: _This would be a stupid way to die._

Then faces appeared in the green murk—girls with long black hair and glowing yellow eyes. They smiled at him, grabbed his shoulders, and hauled him up.

They tossed him, gasping and shivering, onto the shore. Peter glanced back into the water, only to see the mysterious lake girls whispering amongst themselves. When they noticed him looking at them, they waved flirtatious waves and winked at Peter. 

Nearby, Blaire stood in the lake, cutting the wrecked harnesses off the pegasi. Fortunately, the horses looked okay, but they were flapping their wings and splashing water everywhere. Jane, Lee, and Arthur were already on shore, surrounded by kids giving them blankets and asking questions. Somebody took Peter by the arms and helped him stand. Apparently kids fell into the lake a lot, because a detail of campers ran up with big bronze leaf blower–looking things and blasted Peter with hot air; and in about two seconds his clothes were dry. 

There were at least twenty campers milling around-

the youngest maybe nine, the oldest college age, eighteen or nineteen—and all of them had orange T-shirts like Arthur's. Peter looked back at the water and saw those strange girls just below the surface, their hair floating in the current. They waved like, _toodle-oo,_ one more time,and disappeared into the depths. A second later the wreckage of the chariot was tossed from the lake and landed nearby with a wet crunch.

"Arthur!" A girl with a bow and quiver on her back pushed through the crowd. 

"I said you could borrow the chariot, not destroy it!"

"Wilma , I'm sorry," Arthur sighed. 

"I'll get it fixed, I promise."

Wilma scowled at her now broken chariot. Then she sized up Peter, Lee, and Jane. 

"These are the ones? Way older than thirteen. Why haven't they been claimed already?""

"Claimed?" Lee asked.

Before Arthur could explain, Wilma said, 

"Any sign of Paige ?"

"No," Arthur admitted. 

The campers muttered. Peter had no idea who this girl Paige was, but her disappearance seemed to be a big deal.

Another guy stepped forward—tall, Asian, and dark hair with the perfect mixture of I-styled-my-hair-to-perfection and I-just-got-out-of-bed. Somehow he managed to make blue jeans and an orange T-shirt look hot. He glanced at Lee, fixed his eyes on Jane like she might be worthy of his attention, then curled his lip at Peter as if he were a week-old burrito that had just been pulled out of a Dumpster. Peter knew the type. He'd dealt with a lot of guys like this at Wilderness School and every other stupid school his father had sent him to. Peter knew instantly they were going to be enemies.

"Well," the boy said, "I hope they're worth the trouble." 

Lee snorted. "Gee, thanks. What are we, your new pets?"

"No kidding," Jane said. "How about some answers before you start judging us—like, what is this place, why are we here, how long do we have to stay?"

Peter had the same questions, but a wave of anxiety washed over him. 

_Worth the trouble_. If they only knew about her dream. They had no idea.…

"Jane," Arthur said, "I promise we'll answer your questions. And Drew"—he frowned at the glamour guy—"all demigods are worth saving. But I'll admit, the trip didn't accomplish what I hoped."

"Hey," Peter said, "we didn't ask to be brought here."

Drew rolled his eyes. "And nobody wants you, bruh. Does your hair always look like a dead badger?"

Peter stepped forward, ready to smack him, but Arthur said, "Peter , stop."

Peter did. He wasn't a bit scared of Drew, but Arthur 

didn't seem like somebody he wanted for an enemy.

"We need to make our new arrivals feel welcome," Arthur said, with another pointed look at Drew.

"We'll assign them each a guide, give them a tour of camp. Hopefully by the campfire tonight, they'll be claimed." 

"Would somebody tell me what claimed means?" Peter asked. 

Suddenly there was a collective gasp. The campers backed away. At first Peter thought he'd done something wrong. Then he realized their faces were bathed in a strange red light, as if someone had lit a torch behind her. He turned and almost forgot how to breathe.

Floating over Lee's head was a blazing holographic image—a fiery hammer.

"That," Arthur said, "is claiming."

"What'd I do?" Lee backed toward the lake. Then she glanced up and yelped. "Is my hair on fire?" She ducked, but the symbol followed her, bobbing and weaving so it looked like she was trying to write something in flames with her head. 

"This can't be good," Blaire muttered. "The curse—"

"Blaire, shut up," Arthur said. 

"Lee, you've just been claimed—" 

"By a god," Jane interrupted.

"That's the symbol of Vulcan, isn't it?" 

All eyes turned to her.

"Jane," Arthur said carefully, "how did you know that?"

"I'm not sure." 

"Vulcan?" Lee demanded. 

"I don't even LIKE _Star Trek_. What are you talking about?"

"Vulcan is the Roman name for Hephaestus," Arthur said, "the god of blacksmiths and fire."

The fiery hammer faded, but Lee kept swatting the air like she was afraid it was following her. "The god of _what_? Who?"

Arthur turned to the girl with the bow.

"Wilma, would you take Lee, give her a tour? Introduce him to his bunk-mates in Cabin Nine." 

"Sure, Arthur." 

"What's Cabin Nine?" Lee asked. "And I'm not a Vulcan!" 

"Come on, Madam Spock, I'll explain everything." Wilma put a hand on her shoulder and steered her off toward the cabins. 

Arthur turned his attention back to Jane . Usually

Peter didn't like it when other guys checked out his girl, but Arthur didn't seem to care that she was a good-looking gal. He studied her more like she was a complicated blueprint. Finally he said, "Hold out your arm."

Peter saw what he was looking at, and his eyes widened.

Jane had taken off her windbreaker after her dip in the lake, leaving her arms bare, and on the inside of her right forearm was a tattoo. How had Peter never noticed it before? He'd looked at Jane's arms a million times. The tattoo couldn't have just appeared, but it was darkly etched, impossible to miss: a dozen straight lines like a bar code, and over that an eagle with the letters **SPQR**.

"I've never seen marks like this," Arthur said. "Where did you get them?"

Jane shook his head. "I'm getting really tired of saying this, but I don't know." 

The other campers pushed forward, trying to get a look at Jane's tattoo. The marks seemed to bother them a lot—almost like a declaration of war.

"They look burned into your skin," Arthur noticed.

"They were," Jane said. Then she winced as if her head was aching. "I mean…I think so. I don't remember." 

No one said anything. It was clear the campers saw Arthur as the leader. They were waiting for his verdict.

"She needs to go straight to Chiron," Arthur decided. "Drew, would you—"

"Absolutely." Drew laced his arm through Jane's. "This way, dear. I'll introduce you to our director. He's…an interesting guy." He flashed Peter a smug look and led Jane toward the big blue house on the hill.

The crowd began to disperse, until only Arthur and Peter were left.

"Who's Chiron?" Peter asked. "Is Jane in some kind of trouble?" 

Arthur hesitated. "Good question, Peter . Come on, I'll give you a tour. We need to talk."

 **A/N:**

 **Ta-da! Eighth chapter is finished. I don't know if u guys noticed this before, but I'm not actually changing any of the genders of the mortal parents _or_ the gods/goddesses cause that would make it too complicated. I'm also not going to change the genders of any of the mythological things, such as Chiron, or any other myth**

 *** _thunder/lightning*_**

 *** _at sky*_ Oops. Sorry Zeus! **

**I forgot that they hate being called the _m word._**

 **Well! Thanks for sticking with me if you have read this far. Also, this chapter is so far my longest chapter. The chapter in the book was pretty short, so I didn't have to split it into multiple chapters. This entire chapter was actually only chapter three!**

 **Waaaaiiiiiiittt.**

 **Does this mean that if there is, like, fifty-plus chapters in each book that I will have to make at least one hundred chapters?!**

 **Well, I will do it for you guys who are still reading through this really long author's note. Sorry about that by the way. Gotta get back to writing!**


	9. Chapter nine

**A/N: And right into it we shall go!!**

 **Chapter nine: Peter**

Peter soon realized that Arthur's heart wasn't in the tour.

He talked about all this amazing stuff the camp offered—magic archery, pegasus riding, the lava wall, fighting monsters—but he showed no excitement, as if his mind were elsewhere. He pointed out the open-air dining pavilion that overlooked Long Island Sound. (Yes, Long Island, New York; they'd traveled that far on the chariot.) Arthur explained how Camp Half-Blood was mostly a summer camp, but some kids stayed here year-round, and they'd added so many campers it was always crowded now, even in winter.

Peter wondered who ran the camp, and how they'd known Peter and his friends belonged here. He wondered if he'd have to stay full-time, or if he'd be any good at the activities. Could you flunk out of monster fighting? A million questions bubbled in his head, but given Arthur's mood, he decided to keep quiet.

As they climbed a hill at the edge of camp, Peter turned and got an amazing view of the valley—a big stretch of woods to the northwest, a beautiful beach, the creek, the canoe lake, lush green fields, and the whole layout of the cabins—a bizarre assortment of buildings arranged like a Greek omega, Ω, with a loop of cabins around a central green, and two wings sticking out the bottom on either side. Peter counted twenty cabins in all. One glowed golden, another silver. One had grass on the roof. Another was bright red with barbed wire trenches. One cabin was black with fiery green torches out front.

All of it seemed like a different world from the snowy hills and fields outside.

"The valley is protected from mortal eyes," Arthur said. "As you can see, the weather is controlled, too. Each cabin represents a Greek god—a place for that god's children to live."

He looked at Peter like he was trying to judge how Peter was handling the news.

"You're saying Mom was a goddess."

Arthur nodded. "You're taking this awfully calmly."

Peter couldn't tell her why. He couldn't admit that

This just confirmed some weird feelings he'd had for years, arguments he'd had with his father about why there were no photos of Mom in the house, and why Dad would never tell him exactly how or why his mom had left them. But mostly, the dream had warned him this was coming.

 _Soon they will find you, demigod,_ that voice had rumbled. _When they do, follow our directions. Cooperate, and your father might live._

Peter took a shaky breath. "I guess after this morning, it's a little easier to believe. So who's my mom?"

"We should know soon," Arthur said. "You're what—fifteen? Gods are supposed to claim you when you're thirteen. That was the deal."

"The deal?"

"They made a promise last summer…well, long story…but they promised not to ignore their demigod children anymore, to claim them by the time they turn thirteen. Sometimes it takes a little longer, but you saw how fast Lee was claimed once she got here. Should happen for you soon. Tonight at the campfire, I bet we'll get a sign."

Peter wondered if he'd have a big flaming hammer over his head, or with his luck, something even more embarrassing. A flaming wombat, maybe. Whoever his mother was, Peter had no reason to think she'd be proud to claim a kleptomaniac son with massive problems.

"Why thirteen?"

"The older you get," Arthur said, "the more monsters notice you, try to kill you. 'Round thirteen is usually when it starts. That's why we send protectors into the schools to find you guys, get you to camp before it's too late."

"Like Coach Hedge?"

Arthur nodded. "He's—he was a satyr: half man, half goat. Satyrs work for the camp, finding demigods, protecting them, bringing them in when the time is right."

Peter had no trouble believing Coach Hedge was half goat. He'd seen the guy eat. He'd never liked the coach much, but he couldn't believe he'd sacrificed himself to save them.

"What happened to him?" He asked. "When we went up into the clouds, did he…is he gone for good?"

"Hard to say." Arthur's expression was pained. "Storm spirits…difficult to battle. Even our best weapons, Celestial bronze, will pass right through them unless you can catch them by surprise."

"Jane's sword just turned them to dust," Peter remembered.

"She was lucky, then. If you hit a monster just right you can dissolve them, send their essence back to Tartarus."

"Tartarus?"

"A huge abyss in the Underworld, where the worst monsters come from. Kind of like a bottomless pit of evil. Anyway, once monsters dissolve, it usually takes months, even years before they can re-form again. But since this storm spirit Daniella got away—well, I don't know why she'd keep Hedge alive. Hedge was a protector, though. He knew the risks. Satyrs don't have mortal souls. He'll be reincarnated as a tree or a flower or something."

Peter tried to imagine Coach Hedge as a clump of

very angry pansies. That made him feel even worse.

He gazed at the cabins below, and an uneasy feeling settled over him. Hedge had died to get him here safely. His mom's cabin was down there somewhere, which meant he had brothers and sisters, more people he'd have to betray.

 _Do what we tell you_ , the voice had said. _Or the consequences will be painful._ He tucked his hands under his arms, trying to stop them from shaking.

"It'll be okay," Arthur promised. "You have friends here. We've all been through a lot of weird stuff. We know what you're going through."

 _I doubt that_ , Peter thought.

"I've been kicked out of five different schools the past

five years," he said. "My dad's running out of places to put me."

"Only five?" Arthur didn't sound like he was teasing. "Peter, we've all been labeled troublemakers. I ran away from home when I was seven."

"Seriously?"

"Oh, yeah. Most of us are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder or dyslexia, or both—"

"Lee's ADHD," Peter said.

"Right. It's because we're hardwired for battle. Restless, impulsive—we don't fit in with regular kids. You should hear how much trouble Paige—" his face darkened. "Anyway, demigods get a bad rep. How'd you get in trouble?"

Usually when someone asked that question, Peter started a fight, or changed the subject, or caused some kind of distraction. But for some reason he found himself telling the truth.

"I steal stuff," he said. "Well, not really _steal_..."

"Is your family poor?"

Peter laughed bitterly. "Not even. I did it…I don't know why. For attention, I guess. My dad never had time for me unless I got in trouble."

Arthur nodded. "I can relate. But you said you

didn't _really_ steal? What do you mean?"

"Well…nobody ever believes me. The police, teachers—even the people I took stuff from: they're so embarrassed, they'll deny what happened. But the truth is, I don't steal anything. I just ask people for things. And they give me stuff. Even a BMW convertible. I just asked. And the dealer said, 'Sure. Take it.' Later, he realized what he'd done, I guess. Then the police came after me."

Peter waited. He was used to people calling him a liar, but when he looked up, Arthur just nodded.

"Interesting. If your _dad_ were the god, I'd say you're a child of Hermes, God of thieves. He can be pretty convincing. But your dad is mortal..."

"Very," Peter agreed.

Arthur shook his head, apparently mystified.

"I don't know, then. With luck, your mom will claim you tonight."

Peter almost hoped it wouldn't happen. If his mom were a goddess, would she know about that dream? Would she know what Peter had been asked to do? Peter wondered if Olympian gods ever blasted their kids with lightning for being evil, or grounded them in the Underworld.

Arthur was studying him. Peter decided he was going to have to be careful what he said from now on.

Arthur was obviously pretty smart. If anyone could figure out Peter's secret…

"Come on," Arthur said at last. "There's something else I need to check."

They hiked a little farther until they reached a cave near the top of the hill. Bones and old swords littered the ground. Torches flanked the entrance, which was covered in a velvet curtain embroidered with snakes. It looked like the set for some kind of twisted puppet show.

"What's in there?" Peter asked.

Arthur poked his head inside, then sighed and closed the curtains. "Nothing, right now. A friend's place.

I've been expecting him for a few days, but so far, nothing."

"Your friend lives in a cave?"

Arthur almost managed a smile. "Actually, his family has a luxury condo in Queens, and he goes to a finishing school in Connecticut. But when he's here at camp, yeah, he lives in the cave. He's our oracle, tells the future. I was hoping he'd help me—"

"Find Paige," Peter guessed.

All the energy drained out of Arthur, like he'd been holding it together for as long as he could. He sat down on a rock, and his expression was so full of pain

Peter felt like a voyeur.

He forced himself to look away. His eyes drifted to the crest of the hill, where a single pine tree dominated the skyline. Something glittered in its lowest branch—like a fuzzy gold bath mat.

No…not a bath mat. It was a sheep's fleece.

Okay, Peter thought. Greek camp. They've got a replica of the Golden Fleece.

Then he noticed the base of the tree. At first he thought it was wrapped in a pile of massive purple cables. But the cables had reptilian scales, clawed feet, and a snakelike head with yellow eyes and smoking nostrils.

"That's—a dragon," he stammered. "That's the _actual_ Golden Fleece?"

Arthur nodded, but it was clear he wasn't really listening. His shoulders drooped. He rubbed his face and took a shaky breath. "Sorry. A little tired."

"You look ready to drop," Peter said. "How long have you been searching for your girlfriend?"

"Three days, six hours, and about twelve minutes."

 _Wow_ , Peter thought to himself. _Precise_.

"And you've got no idea what happened to her?"

Arthur shook his head miserably. "We were so excited because we both started winter break early. We met up at camp on Tuesday, figured we had three weeks together. It was going to be great. Then after the campfire, I kissed her good night, she went back to her cabin, and in the morning, she was gone. We searched the whole camp. We contacted her mom. We've tried to reach her every way we know how. Nothing. She just disappeared."

Peter was thinking: _Three days ago._ The same night he'd had his dream. "How long were you guys together?"

"Since August," Arthur said. "August eighteenth."

"Almost exactly when I met Jane," Peter said. "But we've only been together a few weeks."

Arthur winced. "Peter…about that. Maybe you should sit down."

Peter knew where this was going. Panic started building inside him, like his lungs were filling with water.

"Look, I know Jane thought—she thought she just appeared at our school today. But that's not true. I've known her for four months."

"Peter," Arthur said sadly. "It's the Mist."

"Missed…what?"

"M-i-s-t. It's a kind of veil separating the mortal world from the magic world. Mortal minds—they can't process strange stuff like gods and monsters, so the Mist bends reality. It makes mortals see things in a way they _can_ understand—like their eyes might just skip over this valley completely, or they might look at that dragon and see a pile of cables."

Peter swallowed. "No. You said yourself I'm not a regular mortal. I'm a demigod."

"Even demigods can be affected. I've seen it lots of times. Monsters infiltrate some place like a school, pass themselves off as human, and everyone thinks they remember that person. They believe he's always been around. The Mist can change memories, even create memories of things that never happened—"

"But Jane's not a monster!" Peter insisted. "She's a human girl, or demigod, or whatever you want to call

her. My memories aren't fake. They're _so_ real. The time we set Coach Hedge's pants on fire. The time Jane and I watched a meteor shower on the dorm roof and I finally got the courage to kiss her…."

He found himself rambling, telling Arthur about his whole semester at Wilderness School. He'd liked Jane from the first week they'd met. She was so nice to him, and so patient, she could even put up with hyperactive Lee and her stupid jokes. She'd accepted him for himself and didn't judge him because of the stupid things he'd done. They'd spent hours talking, looking at the stars, and eventually- _finally-_ holding hands. All that couldn't be fake.

Arthur pursed his lips. "Peter, your memories are a lot sharper than most. I'll admit that, and I don't know why that is. But if you know her so well—"

"I do!"

"Then where is she from?"

Peter felt like she'd walked into a brick wall. "She must have told me, but—"

"Did you ever notice her tattoo before today? Did she ever tell you anything about her parents, or her friends, or her last school?"

"I—I don't know, but—"

"Peter, what's her last name?"

His mind went blank. He didn't know Jane's last name. How could that be?

He started to cry, not worried about how Arthur would think of him if he did. He felt like a total idiot, but he sat down on the rock next to Arthur and just fell to pieces. It was too much. Did everything that was good in his stupid, miserable life have to be taken away?

 _Yes_ , the dream had told him. _Yes, unless you do exactly what we say._

"Hey," Arthur said. "We'll figure it out. Jane's here now. Who knows? Maybe it'll work out with you guys for real."

 _Not likely_ , Peter thought. Not if the dream had told him the truth. But he couldn't say that.

He brushed a tear from his cheek. "You brought me up here so no one would see me blubbering, huh?"

Arthur shrugged. "Least I could do. I figured it would be hard for you. I know what it's like to lose your girlfriend."

"But I still can't believe…I know we had something. And now it's just gone, like she doesn't even recognize me. If she really did just show up today, then why? How'd she get there? Why can't she remember anything?"

"Good questions," Arthur said. "Hopefully Chiron

can figure that out. But for now, we need to get you settled. You ready to go back down?"

Peter gazed at the crazy assortment of cabins in the valley. His new home, a family who supposedly understood him—but soon they'd be just another bunch of people he'd disappointed, just another place he'd been kicked out of.

 _You'll betray them for us,_ the voice had warned. _Or you'll lose everything._

He didn't have a choice.

"Yeah," he lied. "I'm ready."

 **A/N: I'm sorry, but I didn't actually think I would get this far! PLEASE tell me what you think. I really need it. Also, I think that I will now make the rest of the chapters around this length. Thanks you for reading and please comment!**


	10. Chapter ten

**Chapter ten: Peter**

On the central green, a group of campers was playing basketball. They were incredible shots. Nothing bounced off the rim. Three-pointers went in automatically.

"Apollo's cabin," Arthur explained. "Bunch of showoffs with missile weapons—arrows, basketballs."

They walked past a central fire pit, where two guys were hacking at each other with swords.

"Real blades?" Peter noted. "Isn't that dangerous?"

"That's sort of the point," Arthur said. "Uh, sorry. Bad pun. That's my cabin over there. Number Six." He nodded to a gray building with a carved owl over the door. Through the open doorway, Peter could see bookshelves, weapon displays, and one of those computerized SMART Boards they have in classrooms. Two girls were drawing a map that looked like a battle diagram.

"Speaking of blades," Arthur said, "come here."

He led Peter around the side of the cabin, to a big metal shed that looked like it was meant for gardening tools. Arthur unlocked it, and inside were not gardening tools, unless you wanted to make war on your tomato plants. The shed was lined with all sorts of weapons—from swords to spears to clubs like Coach Hedge's.

"Every demigod needs a weapon," Arthur said. "Hephaestus makes the best, but we have a pretty good selection, too. Athena's all about strategy—matching the right weapon to the right person. Let's see..."

Peter didn't feel much like shopping for deadly objects, but he knew Arthur was trying to do something nice for him.

Arthur handed him a massive sword, which Peter could hardly lift.

"No," they both said at once.

Arthur rummaged a little farther in the shed and brought out something else.

"A shotgun?" Peter asked.

"Mossberg 500." Arthur checked the pump action like it was no big deal. "Don't worry. It doesn't hurt humans. It's modified to shoot Celestial bronze, so it only kills monsters."

"Cool, but I don't think that's my style," Peter said.

"Mmm, yeah," Arthur agreed. "Too flashy."

He put the shotgun back and started poking through a rack of crossbows when something in the corner of the shed caught Peter's eye.

"What is that?" he asked. "A knife?"

Arthur dug it out and blew the dust off the scabbard. It looked like it hadn't seen the light of day in centuries.

"I don't know, Peter." Arthur sounded uneasy. "I don't think you want this one. Swords are usually better."

"You use a knife." Peter pointed to the one strapped to Arthur's belt.

"Yeah, but…" Arthur shrugged. "Well, take a look if you want."

The sheath was worn black leather, bound in bronze. Nothing fancy, nothing flashy. The polished wood handle fit perfectly in Peter hand. When he unsheathed it, he found a triangular blade eighteen inches long—bronze gleaming like it had been polished yesterday. The edges were deadly sharp. His reflection in the blade caught him by surprise. He looked older, more serious, not as scared as he felt.

"It suits you," Arthur admitted. "That kind of blade is called a _parazonium_. It was mostly ceremonial, carried by high-ranking officers in the Greek armies. It showed you were a person of power and wealth, but in a fight, it could protect you just fine."

"I like it," Peter said. "Why didn't you think it was right?"

Arthur exhaled. "That blade has a long story. Most people would be afraid to claim it. Its first owner…well, things didn't turn out too well for her. Her name was Helen."

Peter let that sink in. "Wait, you mean _the_ Helen? Helenof Troy?"

Arthur nodded.

Suddenly Peter felt like he should be handling the dagger with surgical gloves. "And it's just sitting in your toolshed?"

"We're surrounded by Ancient Greek stuff," Arthur said. "This isn't a museum. Weapons like that—they're meant to be used. They're our heritage as demigods. That was a wedding present from Menelaus, Helen's first husband. She named the dagger _Katoptris_."

"Meaning?"

"Mirror," Arthur said. "Looking glass. Probably because that's the only thing Helen used it for. I don't think it's ever seen battle."

Feeling absolutely _no_ shame at having picked a girl's dagger, Peter looked at the blade again. For a moment, his own image stared up at him, but then the reflection changed. He saw flames, and a grotesque face like something carved from bedrock. He heard the same laughter as in his dream. He saw his dad in chains, tied to a post in front of a roaring bonfire.

He dropped the blade.

"Peter?" Arthur shouted to the Apollo kids on the court, "Medic! I need some help over here!"

"No, it's—it's okay," Peter managed.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I just…" He had to control herself. With trembling fingers, he picked up the dagger. "I just got overwhelmed. So much happening today. But…I want to keep the dagger, if that's okay."

Arthur hesitated. Then he waved off the Apollo kids. "Okay, if you're sure. You turned really pale, there. I thought you were having a seizure or something."

"I'm fine," Peter promised, though his heart was still racing. "Is there…um, a phone at camp? Can I call my dad?"

Arthur's gray eyes were almost as unnerving as the dagger blade. He seemed to be calculating a million possibilities, trying to read Peter's thoughts.

"We aren't allowed phones," he said. "Most demigods, if they use a cell phone, it's like sending up a signal, letting monsters know where you are. But…I've got one." He slipped it out of his pocket. "Kind of against the rules, but if it can be our secret…"

Peter took it gratefully, trying not to let his hands shake. He stepped away from Arthur and turned to face the commons area.

He called his dad's private line, even though he knew what would happen. Voice mail. He'd been trying for three days, ever since the dream. Wilderness School only allowed phone privileges once a day, but he'd called every evening, and gotten nowhere.

Reluctantly he dialed the other number. His dad's personal assistant answered immediately. "Mr. McLean's office."

"Tiffany," Peter said, gritting his teeth. "Where's my dad?"

Tiffany was silent for a moment, probably wondering if she could get away with hanging up. "Peter, I thought you weren't supposed to call from school."

"Maybe I'm not at school," Peter said. "Maybe I ran

away to live among the woodland creatures."

"Mmm." Tiffany didn't sound concerned. "Well, I'll tell him you called."

"Where is he?"

"Out."

"You don't know, do you?" Peter lowered his voice, hoping Arthur was too nice to eavesdrop. "When are you going to call the police, Tiffany? He could be in trouble."

"Peter, we are not going to turn this into a media circus. I'm sure he's fine. He does take off occasionally. He always comes back."

"So it's true. You _don't_ know—"

"I have to go, Peter," Tiffany snapped. "Enjoy school."

The line went dead. Peter cursed. He walked back to Arthur and handed him the phone.

"No luck?" Arthur asked.

Peter didn't answer. He didn't trust himself not to start crying again.

Arthur glanced at the phone display and hesitated. "Your last name is McLean? Sorry, it's not my business. But that sounds really familiar."

"Common name."

"Yeah, I guess. What does your dad do?"

"He's got a degree in the arts," Peter said automatically. "He's a Cherokee artist."

His standard response. Not a lie, just not the whole truth. Most people, when they heard that, figured his dad sold Indian souvenirs at a roadside stand on a reservation. Sitting Bull bobble-heads, wampum necklaces, Big Chief tablets—that kind of thing.

"Oh." Arthur didn't look convinced, but he put the phone away. "You feeling okay? Want to keep going?"

Peter fastened his new dagger to his belt and promised himself that later, when he was alone, he'd

figure out how it worked. "Sure," he said. "I want to see everything."


	11. Chapter eleven

**Chapter eleven: Peter**

All the cabins were cool, but none of them struck Peter as _his_. No burning signs—wombats or otherwise—appeared over his head. 

Cabin Eight was entirely silver and glowed like moonlight.

"Artemis?" Peter guessed.

"You know Greek mythology," Arthur said.

"I did some reading when my dad was working on a project last year."

"I thought he did Cherokee art."

Peter bit back a curse. "Oh, right. But—you know, he does other stuff too."

Peter thought he'd blown it: McLean, Greek mythology. Thankfully, Arthur didn't seem to make the connection.

"Anyway," Arthur continued, "Artemis is goddess of the moon, goddess of hunting. But no campers. Artemis was an eternal maiden, so she doesn't have any kids."

"Oh." That kind of bummed Peter out. He'd always liked the stories of Artemis, and figured she would make a cool mom.

"Well, there are the Hunters of Artemis," Arthur amended. "They visit sometimes. They're not the children of Artemis, but they're her handmaidens—this band of immortal teenage girls who adventure together and hunt monsters and stuff."

Peter looked up. "That sounds cool. They get to be immortal?"

"Unless they die in combat, or break their vows. Did I mention they have to swear off boys? No dating—ever. For eternity."

"..." Peter had nothing to say to that comment.

Arthur laughed. For a moment he looked almost happy, and Peter thought he'd be a cool friend to hang out with in better times.

 _Forget it_ , Peter reminded himself. _You're not going to make any friends here. Not once they find out._

They passed the next cabin, Number Ten, which was decorated like a Barbie house with lace curtains, a pink door, and potted carnations in the windows. They walked by the doorway, and the smell of perfume almost made Peter gag.

"Gah, is that where supermodels go to die?"

Arthur smirked. "Aphrodite's cabin. Goddess of love. Drew is the head counselor."

"Figures. Of course Pretty Boy is head of glam land. " Peter grumbled.

"They're not all bad," Arthur said. "The last head counselor we had was great."

"What happened to her?"

Arthur's expression darkened. "We should keep moving."

They looked at the other cabins, but Peter just got more depressed. He wondered if he could be the son of Demeter, the farming goddess. Then again, Peter killed every plant he ever touched. Athena was cool. Or maybe Hecate, the magic goddess. But it didn't really matter. Even here, where everyone was supposed to find a lost parent, he knew he would still end up the unwanted kid. He was not looking forward to the campfire tonight.

"We started with the twelve Olympian gods," Arthur explained. "Male gods on the left, female on the right. Then last year, we added a whole bunch of new cabins for the other gods who didn't have thrones on Olympus—Hecate, Hades, Iris—"

"What are the two big ones on the end?" Piper asked.

Arthur frowned.

"Zeus and Hera. King and Queen of the gods."

Peter headed that way, and Arthur followed, though he didn't act very excited. The Zeus cabin reminded Peter of a bank. It was white marble with big columns out front and polished bronze doors emblazoned with lightning bolts.

Hera's cabin was smaller but done in the same style, except the doors were carved with peacock feather designs, shimmering in different colors.

Unlike the other cabins, which were all noisy and open and full of activity, the Zeus and Hera cabins looked closed and silent.

"Are they empty?" Peter asked.

Arthur nodded.

"Zeus went a long time without having any children. Well, mostly. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades, the eldest brothers among the gods—they're called the Big Three. Their kids are really powerful, really dangerous. For the last seventy years or so, they tried to avoid having demigod children."

"Tried to avoid it?"

"Sometimes they…um, cheated. I've got a friend, Thalia Grace, who's the daughter of Zeus. But she gave up camp life and became a Hunter of Artemis. My girlfriend, Paige, she's a daughter of Poseidon. And there's a kid who shows up sometimes, Nicola—daughter of Hades. Except for them, there are no demigod children of the Big Three gods. At least, not that we know of."

"And Hera?" Peter looked at the peacock-decorated doors. The cabin bothered him, though he wasn't sure why.

"Goddess of marriage." Arthur's tone was carefully controlled, like she was trying to avoid cursing. "She doesn't have kids with anyone but Zeus. So, yeah, no demigods. The cabin's just honorary."

"You don't like her," Peter noticed.

"We have a long history," Arthur admitted. "I thought we'd made peace, but when Paige disappeared…I got this weird dream vision from her."

"Telling you to come get us," Peter said. "But you thought Paige would be there."

"It's probably better I don't talk about it," Arthur said. "I've got nothing good to say about Hera right now."

Peter looked down at the base of the doors. "So who goes in here?"

"No one. The cabin is just honorary, like I said. No one goes in."

"Someone does." Peter pointed at a footprint on the dusty threshold. On instinct, he pushed the doors and they swung open easily.

Arthur stepped back. "Um, Peter, I don't think we

should—"

"We're supposed to do dangerous stuff, right?" And Peter walked inside."

 **A/N**

 **Yay! Chapter eleven is complete! I felt very conflicted a bit earlier in the chapter when Arthur/annabeth was introducing Thalia. I was debating whether I should make her a _he_ , but decided against it on account of her being a _huntress_ of Artemis. Also, if I had changed that, it would have just been too complicated for me. If I had changed them to the _hunters_ of Artemis, the I would have had to make Artemis a guy, and then I would have had to do the same for all the other gods/goddesses! Sorry if you don't like that. PLEEEEEAAAASSSSEEEE comment. It fuels me to want to make more chapters. Thanks!**


	12. Chapter twelve

**Chapter twelve: Peter**

Hera's cabin was not someplace Peter would want to live. It was as cold as a freezer, with a circle of white columns around a central statue of the goddess, ten feet tall, seated on a throne in flowing golden robes. Peter had always thought of Greek statues as white with blank eyes, but this one was brightly painted so it looked almost human—except huge. Hera's piercing eyes seemed to follow Peter.

At the goddess's feet, a fire burned in a bronze brazier. Peter wondered who tended it if the cabin was always empty. A stone hawk sat on Hera's shoulder, and in her hand was a staff topped with a lotus flower.

The goddess's hair was done in black plaits. Her face smiled, but the eyes were cold and calculating, as if she were saying:

 _Mother knows best. Now don't cross me or I will have to step on you._

There was nothing else in the cabin—no beds, no furniture, no bathroom, no windows, nothing that anyone could actually use to live. For a goddess of home and marriage, Hera's place reminded Peter of a tomb.

No, this wasn't his mom. At least Peter was sure of _that_. He hadn't come in here because he felt a _good_ connection, but because his sense of dread was stronger here. His dream—that horrible ultimatum he'd been handed—had something to do with this cabin.

He froze. They weren't alone. Behind the statue, at a little altar in the back, stood a figure covered in a black shawl. Only his hands were visible, palms up. He seemed to be chanting something like a spell or a prayer.

Arthur gasped. "Robert?"

The other guy turned. He dropped his shawl, revealing curly red hair and a freckled face that didn't go with the seriousness of the cabin or the black shawl at all. He looked about seventeen, a totally normal teen in a green tee and tattered jeans covered with marker doodles. Despite the cold floor, he was barefoot.

"Hey!" He ran to give Arthur a high five.

"I'm so sorry! I came as fast as I could."

They talked for a few minutes about Arthur's girlfriend and how there was no news, et cetera, until finally Arthur _finally_ remembered Peter, who was standing there feeling uncomfortable.

"I'm being rude," Arthur apologized. "Rob, this is Peter, one of the half-bloods we rescued today. Peter, this is Robert Elliot Dare, our oracle."

"The friend who lives in the cave," Peter guessed.

Robert grinned. "That's me."

"So you're an oracle?" Peter asked. "You can tell the future?"

"More like the future mugs me from time to time," Robert said. "I speak prophecies. The oracle's spirit kind of hijacks me every once in a while and speaks important stuff that doesn't make any sense to anybody. But yeah, the prophecies tell the future."

"Oh." Peter shifted from foot to foot. "That's cool."

Robert laughed. "Don't worry. Everybody finds it a little creepy. Even me. But usually I'm harmless."

"You're a demigod?"

"Nope," Robert said. "Just mortal."

"Then what are you…" Peter waved his hand around the room.

Robert's smile faded. He glanced at Arthur, then back at Peter.

"Just a hunch. Something about this cabin and Paige's disappearance. They're connected somehow. I've learned to follow my hunches, especially the last month, since the gods went silent."

"Went silent?" Peter asked.

Robert frowned at Arthur. "You haven't told him yet?"

"I was getting to that," Arthur said. "Peter, for the last month…well, it's normal for the gods not to talk to their children very much, but usually we can count on some messages now and then. Some of us can even visit Olympus. I spent practically all semester at the Empire State Building."

"Excuse me?"

"The entrance to Mount Olympus these days."

"Oh," Peter said. "Sure, why not?"

"Arthur was redesigning Olympus after it was damaged in the Titan War," Robert explained. "He's an amazing architect. You should see the salad bar—"

"Anyway," Arthur said, "starting about a month ago, Olympus fell silent. The entrance closed, and no one could get in. Nobody knows why. It's like the gods have sealed themselves off. Even my mom won't answer my prayers, and our camp director, Dionysus, was recalled."

"Your camp director was the god of…wine?"

"Yeah, it's a—"

"Long story," Peter guessed. "Right. Go on."

"That's it, really," Arthur said. "Demigods still get claimed, but nothing else. No messages. No visits. No sign the gods are even listening. It's like something has happened—something really bad. Then Paige

disappeared."

"And Jane showed up on our field trip," Peter supplied. "With no memory."

"Who's Jane?" Robert asked.

"My—" Peter stopped himself before he could say "girlfriend ," but the effort made his chest hurt. "My friend. But Arthur, you said Hera sent you a dream vision."

"Right," Arthur said. "The first communication from a god in a month, and it's Hera, the least helpful goddess, and she contacts me, her least favorite demigod. She tells me I'll find out what happened to Paige if I go to the Grand Canyon skywalk and look for a girl with one shoe. Instead, I find you guys, and the girl with one shoe is Jane. It doesn't make sense."

"Something bad is happening," Robert agreed. He looked at Peter, and Peter felt an overwhelming desire to tell them about his dream, to confess that he knew what was happening—at least part of the story. And the bad stuff was only beginning.

"Guys," he said. "I—I need to—"

Before he could continue, Robert's body stiffened. His eyes began to glow with a greenish light, and he grabbed Peter by the shoulders.

Peter tried to back away, but Robert's hands were like steel clamps.

 _Free me,_ he said. But it wasn't Robert's voice. It sounded like an older woman, speaking from somewhere far away, down a long, echoing pipe. _Free me, Peter McLean, or the earth shall swallow us. It must be by the solstice._

The room started spinning. Arthur tried to separate Peter from Robert, but it was no use. Green smoke enveloped them, and Peter was no longer sure if he was awake or dreaming. The giant statue of the goddess seemed to rise from its throne. It leaned over Peter, its eyes boring into him. The statue's mouth opened, its breath like horribly thick perfume. It spoke in the same echoing voice: _Our enemies stir. The fiery one is only the first. Bow to his will, and their king shall rise, dooming us all. FREE ME!_

Peter's knees buckled, and everything went black.

 **A/N:**

 **Review and comment!**


	13. Chapter thirteen

**Chapter thirteen: Lee**

Lee's tour was going great until she heard about the dragon.

The archer girl, Wilma, or Will, Solace, seemed pretty cool. Everything she showed Lee was so amazing, it should've been illegal. Real Greek warships moored at the beach that sometimes had practice fights with flaming arrows and explosives? Sweet! Arts crafts sessions where you could make sculptures with chain saws and blowtorches? Lee was like, _Sign me up!_ The woods were stocked with dangerous monsters, and no one should ever go in there alone? Nice! And the camp was overflowing with fine-looking fellas. Lee didn't quite understand the whole related-to-the-gods business, but she hoped that didn't mean she was cousins with all these hot guys. That would suck. At the very least, she wanted to check out those underwater guys in the lake again. They were definitely worth drowning for.

Will showed her the cabins, the dining pavilion, and the sword arena.

"Do I get a sword?" Lee asked.

Will glanced at her like she found the idea disturbing. "You'll probably make your own, seeing as how you're in Cabin Nine."

"Yeah, what's up with that? Vulcan?"

"Usually we don't call the gods by their Roman names," Will said. "The original names are Greek. Your dad is Hephaestus."

"Festus?" Leo had heard somebody say that before, but she was still dismayed. "Sounds like the god of cowboys."

" _He_ -phaestus," Will corrected. "God of blacksmiths and fire."

Lee had heard that too, but she was trying not to think about it. The god of fire…seriously? Considering what had happened to her mom, that seemed like a sick joke.

"So the flaming hammer over my head," Lee said. "Good thing, or bad thing?"

Will took a while to answer. "You were claimed almost immediately. That's usually good."

"But that Rainbow Pony girl, Blaire—she mentioned a curse."

"Ah…look, it's nothing. Since Cabin Nine's last head counselor died—"

"Died? Like, painfully?"

"I ought to let your bunkmates tell you about it."

"Yeah, where are my home dawgs? Shouldn't their counselor be giving me the VIP tour?"

"She, um, can't. You'll see why." Will forged ahead before Lee could ask anything else.

"Curses and death," Lee said to herself. "This just gets better and better."

Lee was halfway across the green when she spotted her old babysitter. And she was not the kind of person she expected to see at a demigod camp.

Lee froze in her tracks.

"What's wrong?" Will asked.

Tía Callida— _Auntie_ Callida. That's what she'd called herself, but Lee hadn't seen her since she was five years old. She was just standing there, in the shadow of a big white cabin at the end of the green, watching Lee. She wore her black linen widow's dress, with a black shawl pulled over her hair. Her face hadn't changed—leathery skin, piercing dark eyes. Her withered hands were like claws. She looked ancient, but no different than Lee remembered.

"That old lady…" Lee said. "What's she doing here?"

Will tried to follow her gaze. "What old lady?"

"Bruh, the old lady. The one in black. How many old ladies do you see over there?"

Will frowned. "I think you've had a long day, Lee. The Mist could still be playing tricks on your mind. How about we head straight to your cabin now?""

Lee wanted to protest, but when she looked back toward the big white cabin, Tía Callida was gone. She was sure she'd been there, almost as if thinking about her mom had summoned Callida back from the past.

And that wasn't good, because Tía Callida had tried to kill her.

"Oh, I'm just messing with you." Lee pulled some gears and levers from her pockets and started fiddling with them to calm her nerves. She couldn't have everybody at camp thinking she was crazy. At least, not crazier than she really was.

"Let's go see Cabin Nine," she said. "I'm in the mood for a good curse."

From the outside, the Hephaestus cabin looked like an oversize RV with shiny metal walls and metal-slatted windows. The entrance was like a bank vault door, circular and several feet thick. It opened with lots of brass gears turning and hydraulic pistons blowing smoke.

Lee let out a whistle. "They got a steampunk theme going on, huh?"

Inside, the cabin seemed deserted. Steel bunks were folded against the walls like high-tech Murphy beds. Each had a digital control panel, blinking LED lights, glowing gems, and interlocking gears. Lee figured each camper had their own combination lock to release their bed, and there was probably an alcove behind it with storage, maybe some traps to keep out unwanted visitors. At least, that's the way Lee would've designed it. A fire pole came down from the second floor, even though the cabin didn't appear to have a second floor from the outside. A circular staircase led down into some kind of basement. The walls were lined with every kind of power tool Lee could imagine, plus a huge assortment of knives, swords, and other implements of destruction. A large workbench overflowed with scrap metal—screws, bolts, washers, nails, rivets, and a million other machine parts. Lee had a strong urge to shovel them all into her coat pockets. She loved that kind of stuff. But she'd need a hundred more coats to fit it all.

Looking around, she could almost imagine she was back in her mom's machine shop. Not the weapons, maybe—but the tools, the piles of scrap, the smell of grease and metal and hot engines. She would've loved this place.

Lee pushed the thought away before she could start blubbering in front of her new friend. She didn't like painful memories. _Keep moving_ —that was her motto. Don't dwell on things. Don't stay in one place too long. It was the only way to stay ahead of the sadness.

She picked a long implement from the wall. "A weed whacker? What's the god of fire want with a weed whacker?"

A voice in the shadows said, "You'd be surprised."

At the back of the room, one of the bunk beds was occupied. A curtain of dark camouflage material retracted, and Lee could see the girl who'd been invisible a second before. It was hard to tell much about her because she was covered in a body cast. Her head was wrapped in gauze except for her face, which was puffy and bruised. She looked like a piece of metal Lee would hit with her hammers after a bad day.

"I'm Jade Mason," the girl said. "I'd shake your hand, but…"

"Yeah," Lee said. "Don't get up."

The girl cracked a smile, then winced like it hurt to move her face. Lee wondered what had happened to her, but she was afraid to ask.

"Welcome to Cabin Nine," Jade said. "Been almost a year since we had any new kids. I'm head counselor for now."

"For now?" Lee asked.

Wilma Solace cleared her throat. "So where is everybody, Jay?"

"Down at the forges," Jade said wistfully. "They're working on…you know, that problem."

"Oh." Will changed the subject. "So, you got a spare bed for Lee?"

Jade studied Lee, sizing her up. "You believe in curses, Lee? Or ghosts?"

I just saw my evil babysitter Tía Callida, Lee thought. She's _got_ to be dead after all these years. And I can't go a day without remembering my mom in that machine shop fire. Don't talk to me about ghosts, woman.

But aloud, she said, "Ghosts? Pfft. Nah. I'm cool. A storm spirit chucked me down the Grand Canyon this morning, but you know, all in a day's work, right?"

Jade nodded. "That's good. Because I'll give you the best bed in the cabin—Beckendorf's."

"Whoa, Jay," Will said. "You sure?"

Jade called out: "Bunk 1-A, please."

The whole cabin rumbled. A circular section of the floor spiraled open like a camera lens, and a full-size bed popped up. The bronze frame had a built-in game station at the footboard, a stereo system in the headboard, a glass-door refrigerator mounted into the base, and a whole bunch of control panels running down the side.

Lee jumped right in and lay back with arms behind her head. "I can handle this."

"It retracts into a private room below," Jade said.

"Oh, hell, yes," Lee said. "See y'all. I'll be down in Casa Lee. Which button do I press?"

"Hold on," Wilma protested. "You guys have private underground rooms?"

Jade probably would've smiled if it didn't hurt so much. "We got lots of secrets, Will. You Apollo folk can't have all the fun. Our campers have been excavating the tunnel system under Cabin Nine for almost a century. We still haven't found the end. Anyway, Lee, if you don't mind sleeping in a dead dude's bed, it's yours."

Suddenly Lee didn't feel like kicking back. She sat up, careful not to touch any of the buttons. "The counselor who died—this was her bed?"

"Yeah," Jade said. "Charlotte Beckendorf."

Lee imagined saw blades coming through the mattress, or maybe a grenade sewn inside the pillows. "She didn't, like, die in this bed, did she?"

"No," Jade said. "In the Titan War, last summer."

"The Titan War," Lee repeated, "which has nothing to do with this very fine bed?"

"The Titans," Wilma said, like Lee was an idiot. "The big powerful guys that ruled the world before the gods. They tried to make a comeback last summer. Their leader, Kronos, built a new palace on top of Mount Tam in California. Their armies came to New York and almost destroyed Mount Olympus. A lot of demigods died trying to stop them."

"I'm guessing this wasn't on the news?" Lee said.

It seemed like a fair question, but Will shook her head in disbelief. "You didn't hear about Mount St. Helens erupting, or the freak storms across the country, or that building collapsing in St. Louis?"

Lee shrugged. Last summer, she'd been on the run from another foster home. Then a truancy officer caught her in New Mexico, and the court sentenced her to the nearest correctional facility—the Wilderness School. "Guess I was busy."

"Doesn't matter," Jade said. "You were lucky to miss it. The thing is, Beckendorf was one of the first casualties, and ever since then—"

"Your cabin's been cursed," Lee guessed.

Jade didn't answer. Then again, the girl was in a body cast. That _was_ an answer. Lee started noticing little things that she hadn't seen before—an explosion mark on the wall, a stain on the floor that might've been oil…or blood. Broken swords and smashed machines kicked into the corners of the room, maybe out of frustration. The place did feel unlucky.

Jade sighed halfheartedly. "Well, I should get some sleep. I hope you like it here, Lee. It used to be…really nice."

She closed his eyes, and the camouflage curtain drew itself across the bed.

"Come on, Lee," Wilma said. "I'll take you to the forges."

As they were leaving, Lee looked back at her new bed, and she could almost imagine a dead counselor sitting there—another ghost who wasn't going to leave Leo alone.


	14. Chapter fourteen

**Chapter 14: Lee**

"How'd she did?" Lee asked "I mean Beckendorf." 

Wilma trudged ahead. "Explosion. Charlie and Paige Jackson blew up a cruise ship full of monsters. Beckendorf didn't make it out."

There was that name again—Paige Jackson, Arthur's missing girlfriend. That girl must've been into everything around here, Lee thought.

"So Beckendorf was pretty popular?" Lee asked. "I mean—before she blew up?"

"She was awesome," Wilma agreed. "It was hard on the whole camp when she died. Jade—she became head counselor in the middle of the war. Same as I did, actually. Jane did her best, but she never wanted to be leader. She just likes building stuff. Then after the war, things started to go wrong. Cabin Nine's chariots blew up. Their automatons went haywire. Their inventions started to malfunction. It was like a curse, and eventually people started calling it that—the Curse of Cabin Nine. Then Jade had her accident—"

"Which had something to do with the problem she mentioned," Lee guessed.

"They're working on it," Wilma said without enthusiasm. "And here we are."

The forge looked like a steam-powered locomotive had smashed into the Greek Parthenon and they had fused together. White marble columns lined the soot-

stained walls. Chimneys pumped smoke over an elaborate gable carved with a bunch of gods and monsters. The building sat at the edge of a stream, with several waterwheels turning a series of bronze gears. Lee heard machinery grinding inside, fires roaring, and hammers ringing on anvils.

They stepped through the doorway, and a dozen guys and girls who'd been working on various projects all froze. The noise died down to the roar of the forge and the click-click-click of gears and levers.

"'Sup, guys," Wilma said. "This is your new sister, Lee—um, what's your last name?"

"Valdez." Lee looked around at the other campers. Was she really related to all of them? Her cousins came from some big families, but she'd always just had her mom—until she died.

Kids came up and started shaking hands and introducing themselves. Their names blurred together: Sashi, Christine, Nate, Harley (yeah, like the motorcycle). Lee knew she'd never keep everybody straight. Too many of them. Too overwhelming.

None of them looked like the others—all different face types, skin tone, hair color, height. You'd never think, Hey, look, it's the Hephaestus Bunch! But they all had powerful hands, rough with calluses and stained with engine grease. Even little Harley, who couldn't have been more than eight, looked like she could go six rounds with Chuck Norris without breaking a sweat.

And all the kids shared a sad kind of seriousness. Their shoulders slumped like life had beaten them down pretty hard. Several looked like they'd been physically beaten up, too. Lee counted two arm slings, one pair of crutches, an eye patch, six Ace bandages, and about seven thousand Band-Aids.

"Well, all right!" Lee said. "I hear this is the party cabin!"

Nobody laughed. They all just stared at her.

Wilma Solace patted Lee's shoulder. "I'll leave you guys to get acquainted. Somebody show Lee to dinner when it's time?"

"I got it," one of the guys said. Nate, Lee remembered. He wore camo pants, a tank top that showed off his buff arms, and a red bandanna over a mop of dark hair. Except for the smiley-face Band-Aid on his chin, he looked like one of those male action heroes, like any second he was going to grab a machine gun and start mowing down evil aliens.

"Cool," Lee said. "I always wanted a family who could beat me up."

Nate didn't smile. "Come on, joker girl . I'll show you around."

 **A/N: sorry this chapter was shorter. I promise the other chapters will be longer. See yah fruit loops!**


	15. Chapter fifteen

**Chapter fifteen:**

Lee was no stranger to workshops. She'd grown up around grease monkeys and power tools. Her mom used to joke that her first pacifier was a lug wrench. But she'd never seen any place like the camp forge.

One guy was working on a battle-ax. He kept testing the blade on a slab of concrete. Each time he swung, the ax cut into the slab like it was warm cheese, but the guy looked unsatisfied and went back to honing the edge.

"What's he planning to kill with that thing?" Lee asked Nate. "A battleship?"

"You never know. Even with Celestial bronze—"

"That's the metal?"

He nodded. "Mined from Mount Olympus itself. Extremely rare. Anyway, it usually disintegrates monsters on contact, but big powerful ones have notoriously tough hides. Drakons, for instances—"

"You mean dragons?"

"Similar species. You'll learn the difference in monster-fighting class."

"Monster-fighting class. Yeah, I already got my black belt in that."

He didn't crack a smile. Lee hoped he wasn't this serious all the time. Her dad's side of the family had to

have _some_ sense of humor, right?

They passed a couple of people making a bronze windup toy. At least that's what it looked like. It was a six-inch-tall centaur—half man, half horse—armed with a miniature bow. One of the campers cranked the centaur's tail, and it whirred to life. It galloped across the table, yelling, "Die, mosquito! Die, mosquito!" and shooting everything in sight.

Apparently this had happened before, because everybody knew to hit the floor except Lee. Six needle-sized arrows embedded themselves in her shirt before a camper grabbed a hammer and smashed the centaur to pieces.

"Stupid curse!" The camper waved her hammer at the sky. "I just want a magic bug killer! Is that too much to ask?"

"Ouch," Lee said.

Nate pulled the needles out of her shirt. "Ah, you're fine. Let's move on before they rebuild it."

Lee rubbed her chest as they walked. "That sort of thing happen a lot?"

"Lately," Nate said, "everything we build turns to junk."

"The curse?"

Nate frowned. "I don't believe in curses. But something's wrong. And if we don't figure out the dragon problem, it's gonna get even worse."

"The dragon problem?" Lee hoped he was talking about a miniature dragon, maybe one that killed cockroaches, but she got the feeling she wasn't going to be so lucky.

Nate took her over to a big wall map that a couple of girls were studying. The map showed the camp—a semicircle of land with Long Island Sound on the north shore, the woods to the west, the cabins to the east, and a ring of hills to the south.

"It's got to be in the hills," the first girl said.

"We looked in the hills," the second argued. "The woods are a better hiding place."

"But we already set traps—"

"Hold up," Lee said. "You guys lost a dragon? A real full-size dragon?"

"It's a bronze dragon," Nate said. "But yes, it's a life-size automaton. Hephaestus cabin built it years ago. Then it was lost in the woods until a few summers back, when Beckendorf found it in pieces and rebuilt it. It's been helping protect the camp, but, um, it's a little unpredictable."

"Unpredictable," Lee said, feeling completely confused.

"It goes haywire and smashes down cabins, sets people on fire, tries to eat the satyrs."

Oh. "That's pretty unpredictable."

Nate nodded. "Beckendorf was the only one who could control it. Then she died, and the dragon just got worse and worse. Finally it went berserk and ran off. Occasionally it shows up, demolishes something, and runs away again. Everyone expects us to find it and destroy it—"

"Destroy it?" Lee was appalled. "You've got a life-size bronze dragon, and you want to _destroy_ it?"

"It breathes fire," Nate explained with a shrug. "It's deadly and out of control."

"But it's a dragon! Dude, that's so awesome. Can't you try talking to it, controlling it?"

"We tried. Jade Mason tried. You saw how well that worked."

Lee thought about Jade, wrapped in a body cast, lying alone on her bunk. "Still—"

"There's no other option." Nate turned to the other girls. "Let's try more traps in the woods—here, here, and here. Bait them with thirty-weight motor oil."

"The dragon drinks that?" Lee asked.

"Yeah." Nate sighed regretfully. "He used to like it with a little Tabasco sauce, right before bed. If he springs a trap, we can come in with acid sprayers—should melt through his hide. Then we get metal cutters and…and finish the job."

They all looked sad. Lee realized they didn't want to kill the dragon any more than she did.

"Guys," she said. "There has to be another way."

Nate looked doubtful, but a few other campers stopped what they were working on and drifted over to hear the conversation.

"Like what?" one asked. "The thing breathes fire. We

can't even get close."

Fire, Lee thought. Oh, man, the things she could tell them about fire.…But she had to be careful, even if these were her brothers and sisters. _Especially_ if she had to live with them.

"Well…" She hesitated. "Hephaestus is the god of fire, right? So don't any of you have like fire resistance or something?"

Nobody acted as if it was a crazy question, which was a relief, but Nate shook his head gravely.

"That's a Cyclops ability, Lee. Demigod children of Hephaestus…we're just good with our hands. We're builders, craftsmen, weaponsmiths—stuff like that."

Lee's shoulders slumped. "Oh."

A guy in back said, "Well, a long time ago—"

"Yeah, okay," Nate conceded. "A long time ago some children of Hephaestus were born with power over fire. But that ability was very, very rare. And always dangerous. No demigod like that has been born in centuries. The last one…" He looked at one of the other kids for help.

"Sixteen sixty-six," the girl offered. "Guy named Thomas Faynor. He started the Great Fire of London, destroyed most of the city."

"Right," Nate said. "When a child of Hephaestus like that appears, it usually means something catastrophic is about to happen. And we don't need any more catastrophes."

Lee tried to keep her face clear of emotion, which wasn't her strong suit. "I guess I see your point. Too bad, though. If you could resist flames, you could get close to the dragon."

"Then it would kill you with its claws and fangs," Nate said. "Or simply step on you. No, we've got to destroy it. Trust me, if anyone _could_ figure out another answer…"

He didn't finish, but Lee got the message. This was the cabin's big test. If they could do something only Charlotte Beckendorf could do, if they could subdue the dragon without killing it, then maybe their curse would be lifted. But they were stumped for ideas. Any camper who figured out how would be a hero.

A conch horn blew in the distance. Campers started putting up their tools and projects. Lee hadn't realized it was getting so late, but she looked through the windows and saw the sun going down. Her ADHD did that to her sometimes. If she was bored, a fifty-minute class seemed like six hours. If she was interested in something, like touring a demigod camp, hours slipped away and _bam-_ the day was over.

"Dinner," Nate said. "Come on, Lee."

"Up at the pavilion, right?" She asked.

He nodded.

"You guys go ahead," Lee said. "Can you…give me a second?"

Nate hesitated. Then his expression softened. "Sure. It's a lot to process. I remember my first day. Come up when you're ready. Just don't touch anything. Almost every project in here can kill you if you're not careful."

"No touching," Lee promised.

Her cabinmates filed out of the forge. Soon Lee was alone with the sounds of the bellows, the waterwheels

and small machines clicking and whirring.

She stared at the map of camp—the locations where her newfound siblings were going to put traps to catch a dragon. It was wrong. Plain wrong.

Very rare, she thought. And always dangerous.

She held out his hand and studied his fingers. They were long and thin, not callused like the other Hephaestus campers'. Lee had never been the prettiest or the strongest kid. She'd survived in tough neighborhoods, tough schools, tough foster homes by using her wits. She was the class clown, the court jester, because she'd learned early that if you cracked jokes and pretended you weren't scared, you usually didn't get beat up. Even the baddest gangster kids would tolerate you, keep you around for laughs. Plus, humor was a good way to hide the pain. And if that didn't work, there was always Plan B. Run away. Over and over.

There was a Plan C, but she'd promised herself never to use it again.

She felt an urge to try it now—something she hadn't done since the accident, since her mom's death.

She extended her fingers and felt them tingle, like they were waking up—pins and needles. Then flames flickered to life, curls of red-hot fire dancing across her palm.

 **A/N:**

 **Please comment on what you like or what you dislike. Thanks!**


	16. Chapter sixteen

**Chapter sixteen: Jane**

As soon as Jane saw the house, she knew she was dead. 

"Here we are!" Drew said cheerfully. "The Big House, camp headquarters."

It didn't look threatening, just a four-story manor painted baby blue with white trim. The wraparound porch had lounge chairs, a card table, and an empty wheelchair. Wind chimes shaped like nymphs turned into trees as they spun. Jane could imagine old people coming here for summer vacation, sitting on the porch and sipping prune juice while they watched the sunset. Still, the windows seemed to glare down at her like angry eyes. The wide-open doorway looked ready to swallow her. On the highest gable, a bronze eagle weathervane spun in the wind and pointed straight in her direction, as if telling her to turn around.

Every molecule in Jane's body told her she was on enemy ground.

"I am _not_ supposed to be here," she said.

Drew threw his arm over her shoulder. "Oh, please. You're _perfect_ here, sweetie. Believe me, I've seen a lot of heroes."

Drew smelled like Christmas—a strange combination of pine and nutmeg. Jane wondered if he always smelled like that, or if it was some kind of special perfume for the holidays. His pink eyeliner was really distracting. Every time he blinked, she felt compelled to look at him. Maybe that was the point, to show off his warm brown eyes. He was handsome. No doubt about that. But he made Jane feel uncomfortable.

She slipped her arm away as gently as she could. "Look, I appreciate—"

"Is it that guy?" Drew scowled. "Oh, please, tell me you are _not_ dating the Dumpster King."

"You mean Peter? Um…"

Jane wasn't sure how to answer. She didn't think she'd ever seen Peter before today, but she felt strangely guilty about it. She knew she shouldn't be in this place. She shouldn't befriend these people, and certainly she shouldn't date one of them. Still…Peter had been holding her hand when she woke up on that bus. He believed he was her boyfriend. He'd been brave on the skywalk, fighting those venti, and when Jane had caught him in midair and they'd held each other face-to-face, she couldn't pretend she wasn't a little tempted to kiss him. But that wasn't right. She didn't even know her own story. She couldn't play with his emotions like that.

Drew rolled his eyes. "Let me help you decide, sweetie. You can do better. A girl with your looks and obvious talent?"

He wasn't looking at her, though. He was staring at a spot right above her head.

"You're waiting for a sign," she guessed. "Like what popped over Lee's head."

"What? No! Well…yes. I mean, from what I heard, you're pretty powerful, right? You're going to be important at camp, so I figure your parent will claim you right away. And I'd love to see that. I wanna be with you every step of the way! So is your dad or mom the god? Please tell me it's not your mom. I would hate it if you were an Aphrodite kid."

"Why?"

"Then you'd be my half sister, silly. You can't date somebody from your own cabin. Yuck!"

"But aren't all the gods related?" Jane asked. "So

isn't everyone here your cousin or something?"

"Aren't you cute! Sweetie, the godly side of your family doesn't count except for your parent. So anybody from another cabin—they're fair game. So who's your godly parent—mom or dad?"

As usual, Jane didn't have an answer. She looked up, but no glowing sign popped above her head. At the top of the Big House, the weathervane was still pointing her direction, that bronze eagle glaring as if to say, _Turn around, kid, while you still can._

Then she heard footsteps on the front porch. No—not footsteps— _hooves_.

"Chiron!" Drew called. "This is Jane. She's totally awesome!"

Jane backed up so fast she almost tripped. Rounding the corner of the porch was a man on horseback. Except he wasn't on horseback—he was part of the horse. From the waist up he was human, with curly brown hair and a well-trimmed beard. He wore a T-shirt that said World's Best Centaur, and had a quiver and bow strapped to his back. His head was so high up he had to duck to avoid the porch lights, because from the waist down, he was a white stallion.

Chiron started to smile at Jane. Then the color drained from his face.

"You…" The centaur's eyes flared like a cornered animal's. "You should be dead."


	17. Chapter seventeen

**A/N: to those of you who may be reading this particular author's note, and to those of you wondering about this, I _am_ just using the book and changing their names. I thought to myself **

**_What if the HoO books were the opposite gender but same plot?_ And I would've done the PJO series, but I've already seen that done before, hence the reason I did HoO. EVERYTHING. I REPEAT. EVERYTHING. except most of the names, belong to Rick Riordan. I know I said that I wouldn't say this again, but I felt the need to say that I'm not copying it and saying that I wrote it out of my own brain. Now, if you want to stop reading this fix because you've already read the HoO series and you don't want to read it again with different names, then I suggest you do. Sorry if you're disappointed, or even mad or angry. If you didn't immediately exit this fan fiction, then please enjoy this chapter. **

**Chapter seventeen: Jane**

Chiron ordered Jane—well, _invited_ , but it sounded like an order—to come inside the house. He told Drew to go back to her cabin, which Drew didn't look happy about.

The centaur trotted over to the empty wheelchair on the porch. He slipped off his quiver and bow and backed up to the chair, which opened like a magician's box. Chiron gingerly stepped into it with his back legs and began scrunching himself into a space that should've been much too small. Jane imagined a truck's reversing noises— _beep, beep, beep_ —as the centaur's lower half disappeared and the chair folded up, popping out a set of fake human legs covered in a blanket, so Chiron appeared to be a regular mortal guy in a wheelchair.

"Follow me," he ordered. "We have lemonade."

The living room looked like it had been swallowed by a rain forest. Grapevines curved up the walls and across the ceiling, which Jane found a little strange. She didn't think plants grew like that inside, especially in the winter, but these were leafy green and bursting with bunches of red grapes.

Leather couches faced a stone fireplace with a crackling fire. Wedged in one corner, an old-style Pac-Man arcade game beeped and blinked. Mounted on the walls was an assortment of masks—smiley/frowny Greek theater types, feathered Mardi Gras masks, Venetian _Carnevale_ masks with big beaklike noses, carved wooden masks from Africa. Grapevines grew through their mouths so they seemed to have leafy tongues. Some had red grapes bulging through their eyeholes.

But the weirdest thing was the stuffed leopard's head above the fireplace. It looked so real, its eyes seemed to follow Jane. Then it snarled, and Jane nearly leaped out of her skin.

"Now, Seymour," Chiron chided. "Jane is a friend. Behave yourself."

"That thing is alive!" Jane said.

Chiron rummaged through the side pocket of his wheelchair and brought out a package of Snausages. He threw one to the leopard, who snapped it up and licked his lips.

"You must excuse the décor," Chiron said. "All this was a parting gift from our old director before he was recalled to Mount Olympus. He thought it would help us to remember him. Mr. D has a strange sense of humor."

"Mr. D," Jane said. "Dionysus?"

"Mmm hmm." Chiron poured lemonade, though his hands were trembling a little. "As for Seymour, well, Mr. D liberated him from a Long Island garage sale. The leopard is Mr. D's sacred animal, you see, and Mr. D was appalled that someone would stuff such a noble creature. He decided to grant it life, on the assumption that life as a mounted head was better than no life at all. I must say it's a kinder fate than Seymour's previous owner got."

Seymour bared his fangs and sniffed the air, as if hunting for more Snausages.

"If he's only a head," Jane wondered, "where does the food go when he eats?"

"Better not to ask," Chiron said. "Please, sit."

Jane took some lemonade, though her stomach was

fluttering. Chiron sat back in his wheelchair and tried for a smile, but Jane could tell it was forced. The old man's eyes were as deep and dark as wells.

"So, Jane," he said, "would you mind telling me—ah—where you're from?"

"I wish I knew." Jane told him the whole story, from waking up on the bus to crash-landing at Camp Half-Blood. She didn't see any point in hiding the details, and Chiron was a good listener. He didn't react to the story, other than to nod encouragingly for more.

When Jane was done, the old man sipped his lemonade.

"I see," Chiron said. "And you must have questions for me."

"Only one," Jane admitted. "What did you mean when you said that I should be dead?"

Chiron studied her with concern, as if he expected Jane to burst into flames. "My dear, do you know what those marks on your arm mean? The color of your shirt? Do you remember anything?"

Jane looked at the tattoo on her forearm: SPQR, the eagle, twelve straight lines.

"No," she said. "Nothing."

"Do you know where you are?" Chiron asked. "Do you understand what this place is, and who I am?"

"You're Chiron the centaur," Jane said. "I'm guessing you're the same one from the old stories, who used to train the Greek heroes like Heracles. This is a camp for demigods, children of the Olympian gods."

"So you believe those gods still exist?"

"Yes," Jane said immediately. "I mean, I don't think we should worship them or sacrifice chickens to them or anything, but they're still around because they're a powerful part of civilization. They move from country to country as the center of power shifts—like they moved from Ancient Greece to Rome."

" _I couldn't have said it better._ " Something about Chiron's voice had changed. " _So you already know the gods are real. You have already been claimed, haven't you?"_

" _Maybe_ ," Jane answered. " _I'm not really sure."_

Seymour the leopard snarled.

Chiron waited, and Jane realized what had just happened. The centaur had switched to another language and Jane had understood, automatically answering in the same tongue.

" _Quis erat_ —" Jane faltered, then made a conscious effort to speak English. "What was that?"

"You know Latin," Chiron observed. "Most demigods recognize a few phrases, of course. It's in their blood, but not as much as Ancient Greek. None can speak Latin fluently without practice."

Jane tried to wrap her mind around what that meant, but too many pieces were missing from his memory. She still had the feeling that she shouldn't be here. It was wrong—and dangerous. But at least Chiron wasn't threatening. In fact the centaur seemed concerned for her, afraid for her safety.

The fire reflected in Chiron's eyes, making them dance fretfully. "Heroes come and go. Occasionally, they have happy endings. Mostly, they don't. It breaks my heart, like losing a child each time one of my pupils dies. But you—you are not like any pupil I've ever taught. Your presence here could be a disaster."

"Thanks," Jane said. "You must be an inspiring teacher."

"I am sorry, my dear . But it's true. I had hoped that after Paige's success—"

"Paige Jackson, you mean. Arthur's girlfriend, the one who's missing."

Chiron nodded. "I hoped that after he succeeded in the Titan War and saved Mount Olympus, we might have some peace. I might be able to enjoy one final triumph, a happy ending, and perhaps retire quietly. I should have known better. The last chapter approaches, just as it did before. The worst is yet to come."

In the corner, the arcade game made a sad pew-pew-pew-pew sound, like a Pac-Man had just died.

"Ohh-kay," Jane said. "So—last chapter, happened before, worst yet to come. Sounds fun, but can we go back to the part where I'm supposed to be dead? I don't like that part."

"I'm afraid I can't explain, my dear. I swore on the River Styx and on all things sacred that I would never…"

Chiron frowned. "But you're here, in violation of the same oath. That too, should not be possible. I don't understand. Who would've done such a thing? Who—"

Seymour the leopard howled. His mouth froze, half open. The arcade game stopped beeping. The fire stopped crackling, its flames hardening like red glass. The masks stared down silently at Jane with their grotesque grape eyes and leafy tongues.

"Chiron?" Jane asked. "What's going—"

The old centaur had frozen, too. Jane jumped off the couch, but Chiron kept staring at the same spot, his mouth open mid-sentence. His eyes didn't blink. His

chest didn't move.

 _Jane_ , a voice said.

For a horrible moment, she thought the leopard had spoken. Then dark mist boiled out of Seymour's mouth, and an even worse thought occurred to Jane: _storm spirits_.

She grabbed the golden coin from her pocket. With a quick flip, it changed into a sword.

The mist took the form of a woman in black robes. Her face was hooded, but her eyes glowed in the darkness. Over her shoulders she wore a goatskin cloak. Jane wasn't sure how she knew it was goatskin, but she recognized it and knew it was important.

 _Would you attack your patron?_ the woman chided. Her voice echoed in Jane's head. _Lower your sword._

"Who are you?" she demanded. "How did you—"

 _Our time is limited, Jane. My prison grows stronger by the hour. It took me a full month to gather enough energy to work even the smallest magic through its bonds. I've managed to bring you here, but now I have little time left, and even less power. This may be the last time I can speak to you._

"You're in prison?" Jane decided maybe she wouldn't lower her sword. "Look, I don't know you, and you're not my patron."

 _You know me_ , she insisted. _I have known you since your birth._

"I don't remember. I don't remember anything."

 _No, you don't,_ she agreed. _That also was necessary. Long ago, your father gave me your life as a gift to placate my anger. He named you after one of my favorite mortal. You belong to me._

"Whoa," Jane said. "I don't belong to anyone."

 _Now is the time to pay your debt,_ she said. _Find my prison. Free me, or their king will rise from the earth, and I will be destroyed. You will never retrieve your memory._

""Is that a threat? You _took_ my memories?"

 _You have until sunset on the solstice, Jane. Four short days. Do not fail me._

The dark woman dissolved, and the mist curled into the leopard's mouth.

Time unfroze. Seymour's howl turned into a cough like he'd sucked in a hair ball. The fire crackled to life, the arcade machine beeped, and Chiron said,

"—would dare to bring you here?"

"Probably the lady in the mist," Jane offered.

Chiron looked up in surprise. "Weren't you just sitting...why do you have a sword drawn?"

"I hate to tell you this," Jane said, "but I think your leopard just ate a goddess."

She told Chiron about the frozen-in-time visit, the dark misty figure that disappeared into Seymour's mouth.

"Oh, dear," Chiron murmured. "That does explain a lot."

"Then why don't you explain a lot to me?" Jane said. "Please."

Before Chiron could say anything, footsteps reverberated on the porch outside. The front door blew open, and Arthur and another guy, a redhead, burst in, dragging Peter between them. Peter's head lolled like he was unconscious.

"What happened?" Jane rushed over. "What's wrong with him?"

"Hera's cabin," Arthur gasped, like they'd run all the way. "Vision. Bad."

The redheaded boy looked up, and Jane saw that his eyes were red.

"I think…" The redheaded gulped. "I think I may have killed him."

 **A/N:**

 **Ok, so I think I will add at least two chapters a day since it _is_ thesummerandIhavea lot of free time. Sorry about getting a _bit_ sentimental in my a/n up there. Thanks for reading!**


	18. Chapter eighteen

**Chapter eighteen**

Jane and the redhead, who introduced himself as Robert, put Peter on the couch while Arthur rushed down the hall to get a med kit. Peter was still breathing, but he wouldn't wake up. He seemed to be in some kind of coma.

"We've got to heal him," Jane insisted. "There's a way, right?"

Seeing him so pale, barely breathing, Jane felt a surge of protectiveness. Maybe she didn't really know him.

Maybe she wasn't his girlfriend. But they'd survived the Grand Canyon together. They'd come all this way. She'd left his side for a little while, and this had happened.

Chiron put his hand on his forehead and grimaced. "His mind is in a fragile state. Robert, what happened?"

"I wish I knew," he said. "As soon as I got to camp, I

had a premonition about Hera's cabin. I went inside. Arthur and Peter came in while I was there. We talked, and then—I just blanked out. Arthur said I spoke in a different voice."

"A prophecy?" Chiron asked.

"No. The spirit of Delphi comes from within. I know how that feels. This was like long distance, a power trying to speak through me."

Arthur ran in with a leather pouch. He knelt next to Peter. "Chiron, what happened back there—I've never seen anything like it. I've heard Rob's prophecy voice. This was different. He sounded like an older woman. He grabbed Peter's shoulders and told him—"

"To free her from a prison?" Jane guessed.

Arthur stared at her. "How did you know that?"

Chiron made a three-fingered gesture over his heart, like a ward against evil.

"Jane, tell them. Arthur, the medicine bag, please."

Chiron trickled drops from a medicine vial into Peter's mouth while Jane explained what had happened when the room froze—the dark misty woman

who had claimed to be Jane's patron.

When she was done, no one spoke, which made her

more anxious.

"So does this happen often?" she asked. "Supernatural phone calls from convicts demanding you bust them out of jail?"

"Your patron," Arthur said. "Not your godly parent?"

"No, she said patron. She also said my dad had given her my life."

Arthur frowned. "I've never of heard anything like that before. You said the storm spirit on the skywalk—she claimed to be working for some mistress who was giving her orders, right? Could it be this woman you saw, messing with your mind?"

"I don't think so," Jane said. "If she were my enemy, why would she be asking for my help? She's imprisoned. She's worried about some enemy getting more powerful. Something about a king rising from the earth on the solstice—"

Arthur turned to Chiron. "Not Kronos. Please tell me it's not that."

The centaur looked miserable. He held Peter's wrist, checking his pulse.

At last he said, "It is not Kronos. That threat is ended. But…"

"But what?" Arthur asked.

Chiron closed the medicine bag. "Peter needs rest. We should discuss this later."

"Or now," Jane said. "Sir, Mr. Chiron, you told me the greatest threat was coming. The last chapter. You can't possibly mean something worse than an army of Titans, right?"

"Oh," Robert said in a small voice. "Oh, dear. The woman was Hera. Of course. Her cabin, her voice. She showed herself to Jane at the same moment."

"Hera?" Arthur's snarl was even fiercer than Seymour's. " _She_ took you over? _She_ did this to Peter?"

"I think Rob's right," Jane said. "The woman did seem like a goddess. And she wore this—this goatskin cloak. That's a symbol of Juno, isn't it?"

"It is?" Arthur scowled. "I've never heard that."

Chiron nodded reluctantly. "Of Juno, Hera's Roman aspect, in her most warlike state. The goatskin cloak was a symbol of the Roman soldier."

"So Hera is imprisoned?" Robert asked. "Who could do that to the queen of the gods?"

Arthur crossed her arms. "Well, whoever they are, maybe we should thank them. If they can shut up Hera—"

"Arthur," Chiron warned, "she is still one of the Olympians. In many ways, she is the glue that holds the gods' family together. If she truly has been imprisoned and is in danger of destruction, this could shake the foundations of the world. It could unravel the stability of Olympus, which is never great even in the best of times. And if Hera has asked Jane for help—"

"Fine," Arthur grumbled. "Well, we know Titans can capture a god, right? Atlas captured Artemis a few years ago. And in the old stories, the gods captured each other in traps all the time. But something worse than a Titan…?"

Jane looked at the leopard's head. Seymour was smacking his lips like the goddess had tasted much better than a Snausage. "Hera said she'd been trying to break through her prison bonds for a month."

"Which is how long Olympus has been closed," Arthur said. "So the gods must know something bad is going on."

"But why use her energy to send me here?" Jane asked. "She wiped my memory, plopped me into the Wilderness School field trip, and sent you a dream vision to come pick me up. Why am I so important? Why not just send up an emergency flare to the other gods—let them know where she is so they bust her out?"

"The gods need heroes to do their will down here on earth," Robert said. "That's right, isn't it? Their fates are always intertwined with demigods."

"That's true," Arthur said, "but Jane's got a point. Why her? Why take _her_ memory?"

"And Peter's involved somehow," Rob said. "Hera sent him the same message— _Free me_. And, Arthur, this must have something to do with Paige's disappearing."

Arthur fixed his eyes on Chiron. "Why are you so quiet, Chiron? What is it we're facing?"

The old centaur's face looked like it had aged ten years in a matter of minutes. The lines around his eyes were deeply etched. "My boy, in this, I cannot help you. I am so sorry."

Arthur blinked. "You've never…you've never kept information from me. Even the last great prophecy—"

"I will be in my office." His voice was heavy. "I need some time to think before dinner. Robert, will you watch the boy? Call Argus to bring him to the infirmary, if you'd like. And Arthur, you should speak with Jane. Tell her about—about the Greek and Roman gods."

"But…"

The centaur turned his wheelchair and rolled off down the hallway. Arthur's grey eyes turned stormy. He muttered something in Greek, and Jane got the feeling it wasn't complimentary toward centaurs.

"I'm sorry," Jane said. "I think my being here—I don't know. I've messed things up coming to the camp, somehow. Chiron said he'd sworn an oath and couldn't talk about it."

"What oath?" Arthur demanded. "I've never seen him act this way. And why would he tell me to talk to you about the gods…"

His voice trailed off. Apparently he'd just noticed Jane's sword sitting on the coffee table. He touched the blade gingerly, like it might be hot.

"Is this gold?" he said. "Do you remember where you got it?"

"Sorry, but no," Jane said. "Like I said, I don't remember anything."

Arthur nodded, like he'd just come up with a rather desperate plan. "If Chiron won't help, we'll need to figure things out ourselves. Which means…Cabin Fifteen. Rob, you'll keep an eye on Peter?"

"Sure," Robert promised. "Good luck, you two."

"Hold on," Jane said. "What's in Cabin Fifteen?"

Arthur stood. "Maybe a way to get your memory back."


	19. Chapter nineteen

**A/N: hello! Have you been enjoying it so far? Tell me what you think, and without further ado, CHAPTER NINETEEN!**

 **Chapter nineteen: Jane**

They headed toward a newer wing of cabins in the southwest corner of the green. Some were fancy, with glowing walls or blazing torches, but Cabin Fifteen was not so dramatic. It looked like an old-fashioned prairie house with mud walls and a rush roof. On the door hung a wreath of crimson flowers—red poppies, Jane thought, though she wasn't sure how he knew.

"You think this is my parent's cabin?" She asked.

"No," Arthur said. "This is the cabin for Hypnos, the god of sleep."

"Then why—"

"You've forgotten everything," he said. "If there's any god who can help us figure out memory loss, it's Hypnos."

Inside, even though it was almost dinnertime, three kids were sound asleep under piles of covers. A warm fire crackled in the hearth. Above the mantel hung a tree branch, each twig dripping white liquid into a collection of tin bowls. Jane was tempted to catch a drop on her finger just to see what it was, but she held herself back.

Soft violin music played from somewhere. The air smelled like fresh laundry. The cabin was so cozy and peaceful that Jane's eyelids started to feel heavy.

A nap sounded like a great idea. She was exhausted. There were plenty of empty beds, all with feather pillows and fresh sheets and fluffy quilts and—Arthur nudged her. "Snap out of it."

Jane blinked. She realized her knees had been starting to buckle.

"Cabin Fifteen does that to everyone," Arthur warned. "If you ask me, this place is even more dangerous than the Ares cabin. At least with Ares, you can learn where the land mines are."

"Land mines?"

He walked up to the nearest snoring kid and shook her shoulder. "Claire! Wake up!"

The kid looked like a baby cow. She had sort, light blonde on a wedge-shaped head, with thick features and a thick neck. Her body was stocky, but she had spindly little arms like she's never lifted anything heavier than a pillow.

"Claireclaireclaireclaireclaire!" Arthur shook harder, then finally knocked on her forehead about six times.

"Wh-wh-what?" Claire complained, sitting up and squinting. She yawned hugely, and both Arthur and Jane yawned too.

"Stop that!" Arthur said. "We need your help."

"I was sleeping."

"You're always sleeping."

"Good night."

Before she could pass out, Arthur yanked her pillow off the bed.

"That's not fair," Claire complained meekly. "Give it back."

"First help," Arthur said. "Then sleep."

Claire sighed. Her breath smelled like warm milk. "Fine. What?"

Arthur explained about Jane's problem. Every once in a while he'd snap his fingers under Claire's nose to keep her awake.

Claire must have been really excited, because when Arthur was done, she didn't pass out. She actually stood and stretched, then blinked at Jane. "So you don't remember anything, huh?"

"Just impressions," Jane said. "Feelings, like…"

"Yes?" Claire said.

"Like I know I shouldn't be here. At this camp. I'm in danger."

"Hmm. Close your eyes."

Jane glanced at Arthur, but he nodded reassuringly.

Jane was afraid she'd end up snoring in one of the bunks forever, but she closed her eyes. Her thoughts became murky, as if she were sinking into a dark lake.

The next thing she knew, her eyes snapped open. She was sitting in a chair by the fire. Claire and Arthur knelt next to her.

"—serious, all right," Claire was saying.

"What happened?" Jane said. "How long—"

"Just a few minutes," Arthur rushed out. "But it was tense. You almost dissolved."

Jane hoped he didn't mean _literally_ , but his expression was solemn.

"Usually," Claire said, "memories are lost for a good reason. They sink under the surface like dreams, and with a good sleep, I can bring them back. But this…"

"Lethe?" Arthur asked.

"No," Claire said. "Not even Lethe."

"Lethe?" Jane asked.

Claire pointed to the tree branch dripping milky drops above the fireplace. "The River Lethe in the Underworld. It dissolves your memories, wipes your mind clean permanently. That's the branch of a poplar tree from the Underworld, dipped into the Lethe. It's the symbol of my father, Hypnos. Lethe is not a place you want to go swimming."

Arthur nodded. "Paige went there once. She told me it was powerful enough to wipe the mind of a Titan."

Jane was suddenly glad she hadn't touched the branch. "But…that's not my problem?"

"No," Claire agreed. "Your mind wasn't wiped, and your memories weren't buried. They've been stolen."

The fire crackled. Drops of Lethe water plinked into the tin cups on the mantel. One of the other Hypnos campers muttered in his sleep—something about a duck.

"Stolen," Jane said. "How?"

"A god," Claire said. "Only a god would have that kind of power."

"We know that," said Jane. "It was Juno. But how did she do it, and why?"

Claire scratched her neck. "Juno?"

"He means Hera," Arthur said. "For some reason, Jane prefers the Roman names."

"Hmm," Claire said.

"What?" Jane asked. "Does that mean something?"

"Hmm," Claire said again, and this time Jane realized she was snoring.

"Claire!" She yelled.

"What? What?" Her eyes fluttered open. "We were talking about pillows, right? No, gods. I remember. Greek and Roman. Sure, could be important."

"But they're the same gods," Arthur said. "Just different names."

"Not exactly," Claire said.

Jane sat forward, now very much awake. "What do you mean, not exactly?"

"Well…" Claire yawned. "Some gods are only Roman. Like Janus, or Pompona. But even the major Greek gods—it's not just their names that changed when they moved to Rome. Their appearances changed. Their attributes changed. They even had slightly different personalities."

"But…" Arthur faltered. "Okay, so maybe people saw them differently through the centuries. That doesn't change who they are."

"Sure it does." Claire began to nod off, and Jane snapped her fingers under her nose.

"Coming, Mother!" She yelped. "I mean…Yeah, I'm awake. So, um, personalities. The gods change to reflect their host cultures. You know that, Arthur. I mean, these days, Zeus likes tailored suits, reality television, and that Chinese food place on East Twenty-eighth Street, right? It was the same in Roman times, and the gods were Roman almost as long as they were Greek. It was a big empire, lasted for centuries. So of course their Roman aspects are still a big part of their character."

"Makes sense," Jane said.

Arthur shook his head, mystified. "But how do you know all this, Claire?"

"Oh, I spend a lot of time dreaming. I see the gods there all the time—always shifting forms. Dreams are fluid, you know. You can be in different places at once, always changing identities. It's a lot like being a god,

actually. Like recently, I dreamed I was watching a Michael Jackson concert, and then I was onstage with Michael Jackson, and we were singing this duet, and I could not remember the words for 'The Girl Is Mine.' Oh, man, it was so embarrassing, I—"

"Claire," Arthur interrupted. "Back to Rome?"

"Right, Rome," Claire said. "So we call the gods by their Greek names because that's their original form. But saying their Roman aspects are exactly the same—that's not true. In Rome, they became more warlike. They didn't mingle with mortals as much. They were harsher, more powerful—the gods of an empire."

"Like the dark side of the gods?" Arthur asked.

"Not exactly," Claire said. "They stood for discipline, honor, strength—"

"Good things, then," Jane said. For some reason, she felt the need to speak up for the Roman gods, though wasn't sure why it mattered to her. "I mean, discipline is important, right? That's what made Rome last so long."

Claire gave her a curious look. "That's true. But the Roman gods weren't very friendly. For instance, my dad, Hypnos…he didn't do much except sleep in Greek times. In Roman times, they called him Somnus. He liked killing people who didn't stay alert at their jobs. If they nodded off at the wrong time, _boom_ —they never woke up. He killed the helmsman of Aeneas when they were sailing from Troy."

"Nice guy," Arthur said. "But I still don't understand what it has to do with Jane."

"Neither do I," Claire said. "But if Hera took your memory, only she can give it back. And if I had to meet the queen of the gods, I'd hope she was more in a Hera mood than a Juno mood. Can I go back to sleep now?"

Arthur stared at the branch above the fire, dripping Lethe water into the cups. He looked so worried, Jane wondered if he was considering a drink to forget his troubles. Then he stood and tossed Claire her pillow. "Thanks, Claire. We'll see you at dinner."

"Can I get room service?" Claire yawned and stumbled to her bunk. "I feel like… _zzzz_ …" she collapsed with her butt in the air and her face buried in pillow.

"Won't she suffocate?" Jane asked.

"She'll be fine," Arthur said. "But I'm beginning to think that _you_ are in serious trouble.""


	20. INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT AUTHOR NOTE

**Hello, everybody. Sorry this isn't a chapter, if you actually like this story. I said it before, and I'll say it again.**

 **THIS WAS JUST AN IDEA THAT POPPED INTO MY HEAD. IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, DON'T READ IT.**

 **Sorry if you thought you would want to read it because it looked interesting, or if you just wanted to check it out. This is _EXACTLY_ like the book, only switched names/sexes. Again, sorry if this wasn't what you were expecting. I will leave you to your decision about whether you want to continue reading or if you want to stop. **

**Thank you for reading this. I know it probably wasted some of your time.**


	21. Chapter twenty

**A/N: sorry I haven't updated in a couple weeks (maybe). I've been kinda busy with my summer vacation and my other story. I also _may_ have been a bit preoccupied reading a lot of fanfiction on Wattpad. Again, sorry. Enjoy this chapter. **

**Chapter twenty: Peter**

Peter dreamed about his last day with his dad.

They were on the beach near Big Sur, taking a break from surfing. The morning had been so perfect, Peter knew something had to go wrong soon—a rabid horde of paparazzi, or maybe a great white shark attack. No way his luck could hold.

But so far, they'd had excellent waves, an overcast sky, and a mile of oceanfront completely to themselves. Dad had found this out-of-the-way spot, rented a beachfront villa and the properties on either side, and somehow managed to keep it secret. If they stayed there too long, Peter knew the photographers would find them. They always did.

"Nice job out there, Pete." He gave him the smile he was famous for: perfect teeth, dimpled chin, a twinkle in his dark eyes that always made grown women scream and ask him to sign their bodies in permanent marker. ( _Seriously_ , Peter thought, _get a life_.) His close-cropped black hair gleamed with salt water. "You're getting better at hanging ten."

Peter flushed with pride, though he suspected Dad was just being nice. He still spent most of his time wiping out. It took special talent to run over yourself with a surfboard. His _dad_ was the natural surfer—which made no sense since he'd been raised a poor kid in Oklahoma, hundreds of miles from the ocean—but he was amazing on the curls. Peter would've given up surfing a long time ago except it let him spend time with his dad. There weren't many ways he could do that.

"Sandwich?" Dad dug into the picnic basket his chef, Arno, had made. "Let's see: turkey pesto, crabcake wasabi—ah, a Peter special. Peanut butter and jelly."

He took the sandwich, though his stomach was too upset to eat. He always asked for PBJ. Peter was vegetarian, for one thing. He had been ever since they'd driven past that slaughterhouse in Chino and the smell had made his insides want to come outside. But it was more than that. PBJ was simple food, like a regular kid would have for lunch. Sometimes he pretended his dad had actually made it for him, not a personal chef from France who liked to wrap the sandwich in gold leaf paper with a light-up sparkler instead of a toothpick.

Couldn't anything be simple? That's why he turned down the fancy suits Dad always offered, the designer shoes, the trips to the fancy stores. He cut his own hair with a pair of plastic Garfield safety scissors, deliberately making it uneven. He preferred to wear beat-up running shoes, jeans, a T-shirt, and his old Polartec jacket from the time they went snowboarding.

And he hated the snobby private schools Dad thought were good for him. He kept getting himself kicked out. But Dad kept finding more schools.

Yesterday, he'd pulled his biggest heist yet—driving

that "borrowed" BMW out of the dealership. He _had_ to pull a bigger stunt each time, because it took more and more to get Dad's attention.

Now he regretted it. Dad didn't know yet.

He'd meant to tell him that morning. Then Dad had surprised him with this trip, and he couldn't ruin it. It was the first time they'd had a day together in what—three months?

"What's wrong?" He passed him a soda.

"Dad, there's something—"

"Hold on, Pete. That's a serious face. Ready for Any Three Questions?"

They'd been playing that game for years—his dad's

way of staying connected in the shortest possible amount of time. They could ask each other any three questions. Nothing off-limits, and you had to answer honestly. The rest of the time, Dad promised to stay out of his business—which was easy, since he was never around.

Peter knew most kids would find a QA like this with their parents totally mortifying. But he looked forward to it. It was like surfing—not easy, but a way to feel like he actually had a father.

"First question," he said. "Mom."

No surprise. That was always one of his topics.

His dad shrugged with resignation. "What do you want to know, Peter? I've already told you—she disappeared. I don't know why, or where she went. After you were born, she simply left. I never heard from her again."

"Do you think she's still alive?"

It wasn't a real question. Dad was allowed to say he didn't know. But he wanted to hear how he'd answer.

He stared at the waves.

"Your Grandpa Tom," he said at last, "he used to tell me that if you walked far enough toward the sunset, you'd come to Ghost Country, where you could talk to the dead. He said a long time ago, you could bring the dead back; but then mankind messed up. Well, it's a

long story."

"Like the Land of the Dead for the Greeks," Peter remembered. "It was in the west, too. And Orpheus—he tried to bring his wife back."

Dad nodded. A year before, he'd had his biggest role as an Ancient Greek king. Peter had helped him research the myths—all those old stories about people getting turned to stone and boiled in lakes of lava. They'd had a fun time reading together, and it made Peter's life seem not so bad. For a while he'd felt closer to his dad, but like everything, it didn't last.

"Lot of similarities between Greek and Cherokee,"

Dad agreed. "Wonder what your grandpa would think if he saw us now, sitting at the end of the western land. He'd probably think we're ghosts."

"So you're saying you believe those stories? You think Mom is dead?"

His eyes watered, and Peter saw the sadness behind them. She figured that's why women were so attracted to him. On the surface, he seemed confident and rugged, but his eyes held so much sadness. Women wanted to find out why. They wanted to comfort him, and they never could. Dad told Peter it was a Cherokee thing—they all had that darkness inside them from generations of pain and suffering. But Peter thought it was more than that.

"I don't believe the stories," he said. "They're fun to tell, but if I really believed in Ghost Country, or animal spirits, or Greek gods…I don't think I could sleep at night. I'd always be looking for somebody to blame."

Somebody to blame for Grandpa Tom dying of lung cancer, Peter thought, before Dad got famous and had the money to help. For Mom—the only woman he'd ever loved—abandoning him without even a good-bye note, leaving him with a newborn son he wasn't ready to care for. For his being so successful, and yet still not happy.

"I don't know if she's alive," he said. "But I do think she might as well be in Ghost Country, Peter. There's no getting her back. If I believed otherwise…I don't think I could stand that, either."

Behind them, a car door opened. Peter turned, and her heart sank. Tiffany was marching toward them in her business suit, wobbling over the sand in her high heels, her PDA in hand. The look on her face was partly annoyed, partly triumphant, and Peter knew she'd been in touch with the police.

 _Please fall down,_ Peter prayed. _If there's any animal spirit or Greek god that can help, make Jane take a header. I'm not asking for permanent damage, just knock her out for the rest of the day, please?_

But Tiffany kept advancing.

"Dad," Peter said quickly. "Something happened yesterday.…"

But he'd seen Tiffany, too. He was already reconstructing his business face. Tiffany wouldn't be here if it wasn't serious. A studio head called—a project fell through—or Peter had messed up again.

"We'll get back to that, Pete," he promised. "I'd better see what Tiffany wants. You know how she is."

Yeah—Peter sure did know. Dad trudged across the sand to meet her. Peter couldn't hear them talking, but he didn't need to. He was good at reading faces. Tiffany gave him the facts about the stolen car, occasionally pointing at Peter like he was a disgusting pet that had whizzed on the carpet.

Dad's energy and enthusiasm drained away. He gestured for Tiffany to wait. Then he walked back to Peter. He couldn't stand that look in Dad's eyes—like he'd betrayed his trust.

"You told me you would try, Peter," he said.

"Dad, I hate that school. I can't do it. I wanted to tell you about the BMW, but—"

"They've expelled you," he said. "A car, Peter? You're sixteen next year. I would buy you any car you want. How could you—"

"You mean _Tiffany_ would buy me a car?" Peter demanded. He couldn't help it. The anger just welled up and spilled out of him, like a volcano. "Dad, just listen for once. Don't make me wait for you to ask your stupid three questions. I want to go to regular school. I want you to take me to parents' night, not Tiffany. Or homeschool me! I learned so much when we read about Greece together. We could do that all the time! We could—"

"Don't make this about me," his dad said. "I do the best I can, Peter. We've had this conversation."

 _No_ , he thought. _You've cut off this conversation. For years._

His dad sighed. "Tiffany's talked to the police, brokered a deal. The dealership won't press charges, but you have to agree to go to a boarding school in Nevada. They specialize in problems…in kids with tough issues."

"That's what I am." His voice broke. "A problem."

"Peter…you said you'd try. You let me down. I don't know what else to do."

"Do anything," he said. "But do it yourself! Don't let Tiffany handle it for you. You can't just send me away."

Dad looked down at the picnic basket. His sandwich sat uneaten on a piece of gold leaf paper. They'd planned for a whole afternoon in the surf. Now that was ruined. All because of _Tiffany_.

Peter couldn't believe he'd really give in to Tiffany's wishes. Not this time. Not on something as huge as boarding school.

"Go see her," Dad said. "She's got the details."

"Dad…"

He looked away, gazing at the ocean like he could see all the way to Ghost Country. Peter promised himself he wouldn't yell. He wouldn't cry. He wouldn't show any emotions. He headed up the beach toward Tiffany, who smiled coldly and held up a plane ticket. As usual, she'd already arranged everything. Peter was just another problem of the day that Tiffany could now check off her list.


	22. Chapter 21

**Chapter twenty one: Peter**

Peter's dream changed.

He stood on a mountaintop at night, city lights glimmering below. In front of him, a bonfire blazed. Purplish flames seemed to cast more shadows than light, but the heat was so intense, his clothes steamed.

"This is your second warning," a voice rumbled, so powerful it shook the earth. Peter had heard that voice before in his dreams. He'd tried to convince himself it wasn't as scary as he remembered, but it was worse.

Behind the bonfire, a huge face loomed out of the darkness. It seemed to float above the flames, but Peter knew it must be connected to an enormous body. The crude features might've been chiseled out of rock. The face hardly seemed alive except for its piercing white eyes, like raw diamonds, and its horrible frame of dreadlocks, braided with human bones. It smiled, and Peter shivered.

"You'll do what you're told," the giant said. "You'll go on the quest. Do our bidding, and you may walk away alive. Otherwise—"

He gestured to one side of the fire. Peter's father was hanging unconscious, tied to a stake.

He tried to cry out. He wanted to call to his dad, and demand the giant let him go, but his voice wouldn't

work.

"I'll be watching," the giant said. "Serve me, and you both live. You have the word of Enceladus. Fail me…well, I've slept for millennia, young demigod. I am very hungry. Fail, and I'll eat well."

The giant roared with laughter. The earth trembled. A crevice opened at Peter's feet, and he tumbled into darkness.

He woke feeling like he'd been trampled by an Irish step-dancing troupe. His chest hurt, and he could barely breathe. He reached down and closed his hand around the hilt of the dagger Arthur had given him. Katoptris, Helen of Troy's weapon.

So Camp Half-Blood _hadn't_ been a dream.

"How are you feeling?" someone asked.

Peter tried to focus. He was lying in a bed with a white curtain on one side, like in a nurse's office. That redheaded boy, Robert Dare, sat next to him. On the wall was a poster of a cartoon satyr who looked disturbingly like Coach Hedge with a thermometer sticking out of his mouth. The caption read: _Don't let sickness get your goat!_

"Where—" Peter's voice died when he saw the guy at the door. He looked like a typical California surfer dude—buff and tan, blond hair, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. But he had hundreds of blue eyes all over his body—along his arms, down his legs, and all over his face. Even his feet had eyes, peering up at her from between the straps of his sandals.

"That's Argus," Robert said, "our head of security. He's just keeping an eye on things…so to speak."

Argus nodded. The eye on his chin winked.

"Where—?" Peter tried again, but he felt like he was talking through a mouthful of cotton.

"You're in the Big House," Robert said. "Camp offices.

We brought you here when you collapsed."

"You grabbed me," Peter remembered. "Hera's voice—"

"I'm so sorry about that," Robert said. "Believe me, it was _not_ my idea to get possessed. Chiron healed you with some nectar—"

"Nectar?"

"The drink of the gods. In small amounts, it heals demigods, if it doesn't—ah—burn you to ashes."

"Oh. Fun." Peter said with a small frown.

Robert sat forward. "Do you remember your vision?"

Peter had a moment of dread, thinking he meant the dream about the giant. Then he realized Robert was talking about what happened in Hera's cabin.

"Something's wrong with the goddess," Peter said. "She told me to free her, like she's trapped. She mentioned the earth swallowing us, and a fiery one, and something about the solstice."

In the corner, Argus made a rumbling sound in his chest. His eyes all fluttered at once.

"Hera created Argus," Robert explained. "He's actually very sensitive when it comes to her safety. We're trying to keep him from crying, because last time that happened…well, it caused quite a flood."

Argus sniffled. He grabbed a fistful of Kleenex from the bedside table and started dabbing eyes all over his body.

"So…" Peter tried not to stare as Argus wiped the tears from his elbows. "What's happened to Hera?"

"We're not sure," Robert said. "Arthur and Jane were here for you, by the way. Jane didn't want to leave you, but Arthur had an idea—something that might restore her memories."

"That's…that's great."

Jane had been here for him? He wished he'd been conscious for that. But if she got her memories back, would that be a good thing? Peter was still holding out hope that they really did know each other. He didn't want their relationship to be just a trick of the Mist. Oh. Wow. He felt pathetic.

 _Get over yourself,_ he thought. If he was going to save his dad, it didn't matter whether Jane liked him or not. She would hate him eventually. Everyone here would.

He looked down at the ceremonial dagger strapped to his side. Arthur had said it was a sign of power and status, but not normally used in battle. All show and no substance. A fake, just like Peter. And its name was _Katoptris_ , looking glass. He didn't dare unsheathe it again, because he couldn't bear to see his own reflection.

"Don't worry." Robert patted his back in a friendly way.

"Jane seems like a nice girl. She had a vision too, a lot like yours. Whatever's happening with Hera—I think you two are meant to work together."

Robert smiled like this was good news, but Peter's spirits plunged even further. He'd thought that this quest—whatever it was—would involve nameless people. Now Robert was basically telling him: _Good news! Not only is your dad being held ransom by a cannibal giant, you also get to betray the girl you like! How awesome is that?_

"Hey," Robert said. "No need to get all teary on me. You'll figure it out."

Peter wiped his eyes, trying to get control of himself. This wasn't like him. He was supposed to be tough—a hardened car thief, the scourge of L.A. private schools. Here he was, crying like a baby.

"How can you know what I'm facing?"

Robert shrugged. "I know it's a hard choice, and your options aren't great. Like I said, I get hunches sometimes. But you're going to be claimed at the campfire. I'm almost sure. When you know who your godly parent is, things might be clearer."

Clearer, Peter thought. Not necessarily better.

He sat up in bed. His forehead ached like someone had driven a spike between his eyes. _There's no getting your mother back,_ his dad had told him. But apparently, tonight, his mom might claim him. For the first time, Peter wasn't sure he wanted that.

"I hope it's Athena." He looked up, afraid Robert might make fun of him, but the oracle just smiled.

"Dude, I don't blame you. Truthfully? I think Arthur is hoping that too. You guys are a lot alike."

The comparison made Peter feel even guiltier. "Another hunch? You don't know anything about me."

"You'd be surprised."

"You're just saying that because you're an oracle, aren't you? You're supposed to sound all mysterious."

Robert laughed. "Don't be giving away my secrets, Peter. And don't worry. Things will work out—just maybe not the way you plan."

"That's not making me feel better."

Somewhere in the distance, a conch horn blew. Argus grumbled and opened the door.

"Dinner?" Peter guessed.

"You slept through it," Robert said. "Time for the campfire. Let's go find out who you are."

 **A/N: Ta-da! Wow, I it feels like I haven't updated in _forever_! Tell me what you think. Thanks for reading!**


	23. Chapter twenty two

**A/N: hey peeps! Somebody suggested in the comments that it should be the lost _heroine_ instead of the lost hero, so I did. Thanks for the suggestion if that was you! Now, technically, in the book, this chapter is the beginning of chapter ten. This chapter is going to be a bit longer than usual. **

**Chapter twenty two: Peter**

The whole campfire idea freaked Peter out. It made him think of that huge purple bonfire in the dreams, and his father tied to a stake.

What he got instead was almost as terrifying: a sing-along. The amphitheater steps were carved into the side of a hill, facing a stone-lined fire pit. Fifty or sixty kids filled the rows, clustered into groups under various banners.

Peter spotted Jane in the front next to Arthur. Lee was nearby, sitting with a bunch of burly-looking campers under a steel gray banner emblazoned with a hammer. Standing in front of the fire, half a dozen campers with guitars and strange, old-fashioned harps—lyres?—were jumping around, leading a song about pieces of armor, something about how their grandma got dressed for war. Everybody was singing with them and making gestures for the pieces of armor and joking around. It was quite possibly the weirdest thing Peter had ever seen—one of those campfire songs that would've been completely embarrassing in daylight; but in the dark, with everybody participating, it was kind of corny and fun. As the energy level got higher, the flames did too, turning from red to orange to gold.

Finally the song ended with a lot of rowdy applause. A guy on a horse trotted up. At least in the flickering light, Peter _thought_ it was a guy on a horse. Then he realized it was a centaur—his bottom half a white stallion, his top half a middle-aged guy with curly hair and a trimmed beard. He brandished a spear impaled with toasted marshmallows. "Very nice! And a special welcome to our new arrivals. I am Chiron, camp activities director, and I'm happy you have all arrived here alive and with most of your limbs attached. In a moment, I promise we'll get to the s'mores, but first—"

"What about capture the flag?" somebody yelled. Grumbling broke out among some kids in armor, sitting under a red banner with the emblem of a boar's head.

"Yes," the centaur said. "I know the Ares cabin is anxious to return to the woods for our regular games."

"And kill people!" one of them shouted.

"However," Chiron said, "until the dragon is brought

under control, that won't be possible. Cabin Nine, anything to report on that?"

He turned to Lee's group. Lee winked at Peter and shot him with a finger gun. The guy next to her stood uncomfortably. He wore an army jacket a lot like Lee's, with his hair covered in a red bandanna. "We're working on it."

More grumbling.

"How, Nate?" an Ares kid demanded.

"Really hard," the boy said.

Nate sat down to a lot of yelling and complaining,

which caused the fire to sputter chaotically. Chiron stamped his hoof against the fire pit stones— _bang, bang, bang_ —and the campers fell silent.

"We will have to be patient," Chiron said. "In the meantime, we have more pressing matters to discuss."

"Paige?" someone asked. The fire dimmed even further, but Peter didn't need the mood flames to sense the crowd's anxiety.

Chiron gestured to Arthur. He took a deep breath and stood.

"I didn't find Paige," he announced. His voice caught a little when he said her name. "She wasn't at the Grand Canyon like I thought. But we're not giving up.

We've got teams everywhere. Grover, Tyson, Nico **(la)** , the Hunters of Artemis—everyone's out looking. We will find her. Chiron's talking about something different. A new quest."

"It's the Great Prophecy, isn't it?" a guy called out.

Everyone turned. The voice had come from a group in back, sitting under a rose-colored banner with a dove emblem. They'd been chatting among themselves and not paying much attention until their leader stood up: Drew.

Everyone else looked surprised. Apparently Drew didn't address the crowd very often.

"Drew?" Arthur said. "What do you mean?"

"Well, come on." Drew spread his hands like the truth was obvious. "Olympus is closed. Paige's disappeared. Hera sends you a vision and you come back with three new demigods in one day. I mean, something weird is going on. The Great Prophecy has started, right?"

Peter whispered to Robert, "What's he talking about—the Great Prophecy?"

Then he realized everyone else was looking at Robert, too.

"Well?" Drew called down. "You're the oracle. Has it started or not?"

Robert's eyes looked scary in the firelight. Peter was afraid he might clench up and start channeling a freaky peacock goddess again, but he stepped forward calmly and addressed the camp.

"Yes," he said. "The Great Prophecy has begun."

Pandemonium broke out.

Peter caught Jane's eye. She mouthed, _You all right?_ Peter nodded and managed a smile, but then looked away. It was too painful seeing her and not being with her.

When the talking finally subsided, Robert took another step toward the audience, and fifty-plus demigods

leaned away from him, as if one skinny redheaded mortal was more intimidating than all of them put together.

"For those of you who have not heard it," Robert said, "the Great Prophecy was my first prediction. It arrived in August. It goes like this:

" _Seven half-bloods shall answer the call. To storm or fire the world must fall—"_

Jane shot to her feet. Her eyes looked wild, like she'd just been tasered.

Even Robert seemed caught off guard. "Jane?" she said. "What's—"

" _Ut cum spiritu postrema sacramentum dejuremus," he chanted. "Et hostes ornamenta addent ad ianuam necem."_

An uneasy silence settled on the group. Peter could see from their faces that several of them were trying to translate the lines. He could tell it was Latin, but he wasn't sure why his hopefully future girlfriend was suddenly chanting like a Catholic priestess.

"You just…finished the prophecy," Robert stammered. "— _An oath to keep with a final breath/And foes bear arms to the Doors of Deat_ h. How did you—"

"I know those lines." Jane winced and put her hands to her temples. "I don't know how, but I know that prophecy."

"In Latin, no less," Drew called out. "Pretty _and_ smart."

There was some giggling from the Aphrodite cabin. _God, what a bunch of losers_ , Peter thought. But it didn't do much to break the tension. The campfire was burning a chaotic, nervous shade of green.

Jane sat down, looking embarrassed, but Arthur put a hand on her shoulder and muttered something reassuring. Peter felt a pang of jealousy. It should have been _him_ next to her, comforting her.

Robert Dare still looked a little shaken. He glanced back at Chiron for guidance, but the centaur stood grim and silent, as if he were watching a play he couldn't interrupt—a tragedy that ended with a lot of people dead onstage.

"Well," Robert said, trying to regain his composure. "So, yeah, that's the Great Prophecy. We hoped it might not happen for years, but I fear it's starting now. I can't give you proof. It's just a feeling. And like Drew said, some weird stuff is happening. The seven demigods, whoever they are, have not been gathered yet. I get the feeling some are here tonight. Some are not here."

The campers began to stir and mutter, looking at each other nervously, until a drowsy voice in the crowd called out, "I'm here! Oh…were you calling roll?"

"Go back to sleep, Claire," someone yelled, and a lot of people laughed.

"Anyway," Robert continued, "we don't know what

the Great Prophecy means. We don't know what challenge the demigods will face, but since the first Great Prophecy predicted the Titan War, we can guess the second Great Prophecy will predict something at least that bad."

"Or worse," Chiron murmured.

Maybe he didn't mean for everyone to overhear, but they

did. The campfire immediately turned dark purple, the same color as Peter's dream.

"What we do know," Robert said, "is that the first phase has begun. A major problem has arisen, and we need a quest to solve it. Hera, the queen of the gods, has been taken."

Shocked silence. Then fifty demigods started talking at once.

Chiron pounded his hoof again, but Robert still had to wait before he could get back their attention.

He told them about the incident on the Grand Canyon skywalk—how Gleeson Hedge had sacrificed himself when the storm spirits attacked, and the spirits had warned it was only the beginning. They apparently served some great mistress who would destroy all demigods.

Then Robert told them about Peter passing out in Hera's cabin. Peter tried to keep a calm expression, even when he noticed Drew in the back row, pantomiming a faint, and his friends giggling. Finally Robert told them about Jane's vision in the living room of the Big House. The message Hera had delivered there was so similar that Peter got a chill. The only difference: Hera had warned Peter not to betray her: _Bow to his_ _will, and their king shall rise, dooming us all._ Hera _knew_ about the giant's threat. But if that was true, why hadn't she warned Jane, and exposed Peter as an enemy agent?

"Jane," Robert said. "Um…do you remember your last name?"

She looked self-conscious, but she shook her head.

"We'll just call you Jane, then," Robert said. "It's clear Hera herself has issued you a quest."

Robert paused, as if giving Jane a chance to protest her destiny. Everyone's eyes were on her; there was so much pressure, Peter thought he would've buckled in her position. Yet she looked brave and determined. She set his jaw and nodded. "I agree."

"You must save Hera to prevent a great evil," Robert continued. "Some sort of king from rising. For reasons we don't yet understand, it must happen by the winter solstice, only four days from now."

"That's the council day of the gods," Arthur said. "If the gods don't already know Hera's gone, they will definitely notice her absence by then. They'll probably break out fighting, accusing each other of taking her. That's what they usually do."

"The winter solstice," Chiron spoke up, "is also the time of greatest darkness. The gods gather that day, as mortals always have, because there is strength in numbers. The solstice is a day when evil magic is strong. _Ancient_ magic, older than the gods. It is a day when things…stir."

The way he said it, stirring sounded absolutely sinister—like it should be a first-degree felony, not something you did to cookie dough.

"Okay," Arthur said, glaring at the centaur. "Thank you, Captain Sunshine. Whatever's going on, I agree with Rob. Jane has been chosen to lead this quest, so—"

"Why hasn't she been claimed?" somebody yelled from the Ares cabin. "If she's so important—"

"She has been claimed," Chiron announced. "Long ago. Jane, give them a demonstration."

At first, Jane didn't seem to understand. She stepped forward nervously, but Peter couldn't help thinking how beautiful she looked with her blond hair glowing in the firelight, her regal features like a Roman statue's. She glanced at Peter, and he nodded encouragingly. He mimicked flipping a coin.

Jane reached into her pocket. Her coin flashed in the air, and when she caught it in her hand, she was holding a lance—a rod of gold about seven feet long, with a spear tip at one end.

The other demigods gasped. Robert and Arthur stepped back to avoid the point, which looked sharp as an ice pick.

"Wasn't that…" Arthur hesitated. "I thought you had a sword."

"Um, it came up tails, I think," Jane said. "Same coin, long-range weapon form."

"Dude, I want one!" yelled somebody from Ares cabin.

"Better than Clark's electric spear, Lamer!" one of his brothers agreed.

"Electric," Jane murmured, like that was a good idea. "Back away."

Arthur and Robert got the message. Jane raised her javelin, and thunder broke open the sky. Every hair on Peter's arms stood straight up. Lightning arced down through the golden spear point and hit the campfire with the force of an artillery shell.

When the smoke cleared, and the ringing in Peter's ears subsided, the entire camp sat frozen in shock, half blind, covered in ashes, staring at the place where the fire had been. Cinders rained down everywhere. A burning log had impaled itself a few inches from the sleeping kid Claire, who hadn't even stirred.

Jane lowered her lance. "Um…sorry."

Chiron brushed some burning coals out of his beard.

He grimaced as if his worst fears had been confirmed. "A little overkill, perhaps, but you've made your point. And I believe we know who your father is."

"Jupiter," Jane said. "I mean Zeus. Lord of the Sky."

Peter couldn't help smiling. It made perfect sense. The most powerful god, the father of all the greatest heroes in the ancient myths—no one else could possibly be Jane's dad.

Apparently, the rest of the camp wasn't so sure. Everything broke into chaos, with dozens of people asking questions until Arthur raised his arms.

"Hold it!" He said. "How can she be the daughter of Zeus? The Big Three…their pact not to have mortal kids…how could we not have known about her sooner?"

Chiron didn't answer, but Peter got the feeling he knew. And the truth was not good.

"The important thing," Robert said, "is that Jane's here now. She has a quest to fulfill, which means she will need her own prophecy."

He closed her eyes and swooned. Two campers rushed forward and caught him. A third ran to the side of the amphitheater and grabbed a bronze three-legged stool, like they'd been trained for this duty. They eased Robert onto the stool in front of the ruined hearth. Without the fire, the night was dark, but green mist started swirling around Robert's feet. When he opened his eyes, they were glowing. Emerald smoke issued from his mouth. The voice that came out was raspy and ancient—the sound a snake would make if it could talk:

" _Child of lightning, beware the earth, The giants' revenge the seven shall birth, The forge and dove shall break the cage, And death unleash through Hera's rage."_

On the last word, Robert collapsed, but his helpers were waiting to catch him. They carried him away from the hearth and laid him in the corner to rest.

"Is that normal?" Peter asked. Then he realized he'd spoken into the silence, and everyone was looking

at him. "I mean…does he spew green smoke a lot?"

"Gods, you're dense!" Drew sneered. "He just issued a prophecy—Jane's prophecy to save Hera! Why don't you just—"

"Drew," Arthur snapped. "Peter asked a fair question. Something about that prophecy definitely isn't normal. If breaking Hera's cage unleashes her rage and causes a bunch of death…why would we free her? It might be a trap, or—or maybe Hera will turn on her rescuers. She's never been kind to heroes."

Jane rose. "I don't have much choice. Hera took my

memory. I need it back. Besides, we can't just not help the queen of the heavens if she's in trouble."

A boy from Hephaestus cabin stood up—Nate, the one with the red bandanna. "Maybe. But you should listen to Arthur. Hera can be vengeful. She threw her own son—our dad—down a mountain just because he was ugly."

" _Real_ ugly," snickered someone from Aphrodite.

"Shut up!" Nate growled. "Anyway, we've also got to think—why beware the earth? And what's the giants' revenge? What are we dealing with here that's powerful enough to kidnap the queen of the heavens?"

No one answered, but Peter noticed Arthur and Chiron having a silent exchange. Peter thought it went something like:

Arthur: _The giants' revenge…no, it can't be._

Chiron: _Don't speak of it here. Don't scare them._

Arthur: _You're kidding me! We can't be that unlucky._

Chiron: _Later, child. If you told them everything, they would be too terrified to proceed._

Peter knew it was crazy to think he could read their expressions so well—two people he barely knew. But he was absolutely positive he understood them, and it

scared the jujubes out of him.

Arthur took a deep breath. "It's Jane's quest," he announced, "so it's Jane's choice. Obviously, she's the child of lightning. According to tradition, she may choose any two companions."

Someone from the Hermes cabin yelled, "Well, you, obviously, Arthur. You've got the most experience."

"No, Trina," Arthur said. "First off, I'm not helping Hera. Every time I've tried, she's deceived me, or it's come back to bite me later. Forget it. No way. Secondly, I'm leaving first thing in the morning to find Paige."

"It's connected," Peter blurted out, not sure how he got the courage. "You know that's true, don't you? This whole business, your girlfriend's disappearance—it's all connected."

"How?" demanded Drew. "If you're so smart, how?"

Peter tried to form an answer, but he couldn't.

Arthur saved him. "You may be right, Peter. If this is connected, I'll find out from the other end—by searching for Paige. As I said, I'm not about to rush off to rescue Hera, even if her disappearance sets the rest of the Olympians fighting again. But there's another reason I can't go. The prophecy says otherwise."

"It says who _I_ pick," Jane agreed.

" _The forge and dove shall break the cage. The forge is the symbol of Vul—Hephaestus."_

Under the Cabin Nine banner, Nate's shoulders slumped, like he'd just been given a heavy anvil to carry. "If you have to beware the earth," he said, "you should avoid traveling overland. You'll need air transport."

Peter was about to call out that Jane could fly. But then he thought better of it. That was for Jane to tell them, and she wasn't volunteering the information. Maybe she figured she'd freaked them out enough for one night.

"The flying chariot's broken," Nate continued, "and the pegasi, we're using them to search for Paige. But maybe Hephaestus cabin can help figure out something else to help. With Jade incapacitated, I'm senior camper. I can volunteer for the quest."

He didn't sound enthusiastic.

Then Lee stood up. She'd been so quiet, Peter had almost forgotten she was there, which was totally not like Lee.

"It's me," she said.

Her cabinmates stirred. Several tried to pull her back to her seat, but Lee resisted.

"No, it's me. I know it is. I've got an idea for the transportation problem. Let me try. I can fix this!"

Jane studied her for a moment. Peter was sure she was going to tell Lee no. Then she smiled. "We started this together, Lee. Seems only right you come along. You find us a ride, you're in."

"Yes!" Lee pumped his fist.

"It'll be dangerous," Nate warned her. "Hardship, monsters, terrible suffering. Possibly none of you will come back alive."

"Oh." Suddenly Lee didn't look so excited. Then she remembered everyone was watching. "I mean…Oh, cool! Suffering? I love suffering! Let's do this."

Arthur nodded. "Then, Jane, you only need to choose the third quest member. The dove—"

"Oh, absolutely!" Drew was on his feet and flashing Jane a seductive smile. "The dove is Aphrodite. Everybody knows that. I am totally yours."

Peter's hands clenched. He stepped forward. "No."

Drew rolled his pink eyeliner eyes. "Oh, please, Dumpster dude. Back off."

"I had the vision of Hera; not you. I have to do this."

"Anyone can have a vision," Drew said. "You were just at the right place at the right time." He turned to Jane. "Look, fighting is all fine, I suppose. And people who

build things…" He looked at Lee in disdain. "Well, I suppose someone has to get their hands dirty. But you need charm on your side. I can be very persuasive. I could help a lot."

The campers started murmuring about how Drew was pretty persuasive. Peter could see Drew winning them over. Even Chiron was scratching his beard, like Drew's participation suddenly made sense to him.

"Well…" Arthur said. "Given the wording of the prophecy—"

"No!" Peter's own voice sounded strange in his ears—more insistent, deep, richer in tone. "I'm supposed to go."

Then the weirdest thing happened. Everyone started nodding, muttering _that_ _hmm_ , _Piper's point of view made sense too._ Drew looked around, incredulous. Even some of his own campers were nodding.

"Get over it!" Drew snapped at the crowd. "What can Peter do?"

Peter tried to respond, but his confidence started to wane. What _could_ he offer? He wasn't a fighter, or a planner, or a fixer. He had no skills except getting into trouble and occasionally convincing people to do stupid things.

Plus, he was a liar. He needed to go on this quest for reasons that went way beyond Jane—and if he did go, He'd end up betraying everyone there. He heard that voice from the dream: _Do our bidding, and you may walk away alive._ How could he make a choice like that—between helping his father and helping Jane?

"Well," Drew said smugly, "I guess that settles it."

Suddenly there was collective gasp. Everyone stared at Peter like he'd just exploded. He wondered what he'd done wrong. Then he realized there was a reddish glow around him.

"What?" He demanded.

He looked above him, but there was no burning symbol like the one that had appeared over Lee. Then he looked down and yelped.

His clothes…what in the _world_ was he wearing? He despised suits. He didn't even _own_ a suit. But now he was adorned in an expensive cut midnight blue suit jacket with matching pants, with a pearl white shirt underneath that looked like it was over one thousand dollars. The neck of the suit was fastened with a silver neck tie, and a matching pocket square in the chest pocket. His shoes...oh, his dress shoes rivaled any of the dress shoes that his dad had ever worn. And his hair…

"Oh, god," he said. "What's happened?"

A stunned Arthur pointed at Peter's dagger, which was now oiled and gleaming, hanging at his side in its sheath from a golden belt. Peter didn't want to draw it. He was afraid of what he would see. But his curiosity won out. He unsheathed Katoptris and stared at his reflection in the polished metal blade. His hair was perfect: chocolate brown, windswept to perfection, so that it looked like the perfect combination of I-woke-up-like-this and I-paid-too-much-money-for-this.

He was…he was…

"Piper," Jane exclaimed. "Piper, you…you're a _hot_."

Under different circumstances, that would've been

the happiest moment of his life. But now everyone was staring at him like he was a freak. Drew's face was full of horror and revulsion. "No!" he cried. "Not possible!"

"This isn't me," Peter protested. "I—don't understand."

Chiron the centaur folded his front legs and bowed to him, and all the campers followed his example.

"Hail, Peter McLean," Chiron announced gravely, as if he were speaking at his funeral. "Son of Aphrodite, lady of the doves, goddess of love."

 **A/N: Tada! Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I think. So, I saw this thing on a fanfic on Wattpad. This author put trivia questions at the end of each chapter, and whoever answered them first got a shout out in the next chapter. Should I do that? If you don't think I should comment, but I'm gonna try it in this chapter.**

 **Trivia:**

 **What was Daedalus' third body called? (You can find it in battle of the labyrinth)**

 **Thanks and please comment!**


	24. Chapter twenty three

**A/N: hey everyone! Ok, so the answer to the trivia question is Quintus, but nobody answered it so I'm not going to do it again. I just wanted to tell you that I have been working on getting this story up on my Wattpad account as my first Wattpad story. My account is @silver7437 on Wattpad. Also, I just wanted to say that it was actually pretty hard to come up with Peter's outfit and look last chapter. Now, if you don't mind, I would like to continue on with this chapter! Enjoy and comment.**

Chapter twenty three

Lee didn't stick around after Peter turned hot...er . Sure, it was amazing and all— _He's got a suit! It's a miracle!_ —but Lee had problems to deal with. She ducked out of the amphitheater and ran into the darkness, wondering what she'd gotten herself into.

She'd stood up in front of a bunch of stronger, braver demigods and volunteered— _volunteered_ —for a mission that would probably get her killed.

She hadn't mentioned seeing Tía Callida, her old babysitter, but as soon as she'd heard about Jane's vision—the lady in the black dress and shawl—Lee knew it was the same woman. Tía Callida was Hera. Her evil babysitter was the queen of the gods. Stuff like that could really deep-fry your brain.

She trudged toward the woods and tried not to think about her childhood—all the messed-up things that had led to her mother's death. But she couldn't help it.

The first time Tía Callida tried to kill her, she must've been about two. Tía Callida was looking after her while her mother was at the machine shop. She wasn't really her aunt, of course—just one of the old women in the community, a generic tía who helped watch the kids. She smelled like a honey-baked ham, and always wore a widow's dress with a black shawl.

"Let's set you down for a nap," she said. "Let's see if you are my brave little hero, eh?"

Lee was sleepy. She nestled her into his blankets in a warm mound of red and yellow—pillows?The bed was like a cubbyhole in the wall made of blackened bricks, with a metal slot over her head and a square hole far above, where she could see the stars. She remembered resting comfortably, grabbing at sparks like fireflies. She dozed, and dreamed of a boat made of fire, sailing through the cinders. She imagined herself on board, navigating the sky. Somewhere nearby, Tía Callida sat in her rocking chair— _creak, creak, creak_ —and sang a lullaby. Even at two, Lee knew the difference between English and Spanish, and she remembered being puzzled because Tía Callida was singing in a language that was neither.

Everything was fine until her mother came home. She screamed and raced over to snatch her up, yelling at Tía Callida, "How could you?" But the old lady had disappeared.

Lee remembered looking over her mother's shoulder at the flames curling around her blankets. Only years later had she realized she'd been sleeping in a blazing fireplace.

The weirdest thing? Tía Callida hadn't been arrested or even banished from their house. She appeared again several times over the next few years. Once when Lee was three, Tía Callida let her play with knives. "You must learn your blades early," she insisted, "if you are to be my hero someday." Lee managed not to kill herself, but she got the feeling Tía Callida wouldn't have cared one way or the other.

When Lee was four, Tía found a rattlesnake for her in a nearby cow pasture. She gave her a stick and encouraged him to poke the animal. "Where is your bravery, little hero? Show me the Fates were right to choose you." Lee stared down at those amber eyes, hearing the dry _shh-shh-ssh_ of the snake's rattle. She couldn't bring himself to poke the snake. It didn't seem fair. Apparently the snake felt the same way about biting a little kid. Lee could've sworn it looked at Tía Callida like, _Are you nuts, lady_? Then it disappeared into the tall grass.

The last time she babysat her, Lee was five. Tía Callida brought her a pack of crayons and a pad of paper. They sat together at the picnic table in back of the apartment complex, under an old pecan tree. While Tía Callida sang her strange songs, Lee drew a picture of the boat she'd seen in the flames, with colorful sails and rows of oars, a curved stern, and an awesome figurehead. When she was almost done, about to sign her name the way she'd learned in kindergarten, a wind snatched the picture away. It flew into the sky and disappeared.

Lee wanted to cry. She'd spent so much time on that picture—but Tía Callida just clucked with disappointment.

"It isn't time yet, little hero. Someday, you'll have your quest. You'll find your destiny, and your hard journey will finally make sense. But first you must face many sorrows. I regret that, but heroes cannot be shaped any other way. Now, make me a fire, eh? Warm these old bones."

A few minutes later, Lee mom came out and shrieked with horror. Tía Callida was gone, but Lee sat in the middle of a smoking fire. The pad of paper was reduced to ashes. Crayons had melted into a bubbling puddle of multicolored goo, and Lee's hands were ablaze, slowly burning through the picnic table. For years afterward, people in the apartment complex would wonder how someone had seared the impressions of a five-year-old's hands an inch deep into solid wood.

Now Lee was sure that Tía Callida, her psychotic babysitter, had been Hera all along. That made her, what—her godly grandmother? Her family was even more messed up than she realized.

She wondered if her mother had known the truth. Lee remembered after that last visit, her mom took her inside and had a long talk with her, but she only understood some of it.

"She can't come back again." Her mom had a beautiful face with kind eyes, and curly dark hair, but she looked older than she was because of hard work. The lines around her eyes were deeply etched. Her hands were callused. She was the first person from their family to graduate from college. She had a degree in mechanical engineering and could design anything, fix anything, build anything. No one would hire her. No company would take her seriously, so she ended up in the machine shop, trying to make enough money to support the two of them. She always smelled of machine oil, and when she talked with Lee, she switched from Spanish to English constantly—using them like complementary tools. It took Lee years to realize that not everyone spoke that way. She'd even taught her Morse code as a kind of game, so they could tap messages to each other when they were in different rooms: _I love you. You okay?_ Simple things like that.

"Idon't care what Callida says," her mom told her. "I don't care about destiny and the Fates. You're too young for that. You're still my baby girl."

She took her hands, looking for burn marks, but of course there weren't any. "Lee, listen to me. Fire is a tool, like anything else, but it's more dangerous than most. You don't know your limits. Please, promise me—no more fire until you meet your father. Someday, _mija_ , you _will_ meet him. He'll explain everything."

Lee had heard that since she could remember. Someday she would meet her dad. Her mom wouldn't answer any questions about him. Lee had never met him, never even seen pictures, but she talked like he'd just gone to the store for some milk and he'd be back any minute. Lee tried to believe her. Someday, everything would make sense.

For the next couple of years, they were happy. Lee almost forgot about Tía Callida. She still dreamed of the flying boat, but the other strange events seemed like a dream too.

It all came apart when she was eight. By then, she was spending every free hour at the shop with her mom. She knew how to use the machines. She could measure and do math better than most adults. She'd learned to think three-dimensionally, solving mechanical problems in her head the way her mom did.

One night, they stayed late because her mom was finishing a drill bit design she hoped to patent. If she could sell the prototype, it might change their lives. She'd finally get a break.

As she worked, Lee passed her supplies and told her corny jokes, trying to keep her spirits up. She loved it when she could make her mom laugh. She'd smile and say, "Your father would be proud of you, _mija_. You'll meet him soon, I'm sure."

Mom's workspace was at the very back of the shop. It was kind of creepy at night, because they were the only ones there. Every sound echoed through the dark warehouse, but Lee didn't mind as long as she was with her mom. If she did wander the shop, they could always keep in touch with Morse code taps. Whenever they were ready to leave, they had to walk through the entire shop, through the break room, and out to the parking lot, locking the doors behind them.

That night after finishing up, they'd just gotten to the break room when her mom realized she didn't have her keys.

"That's funny." She frowned. "I know I had them. Wait here, _mija_. I'll only be a minute."

She gave her one more smile—the last one she'd ever get—and she went back into the warehouse.

She'd only been gone a few heartbeats when the interior door slammed shut. Then the exterior door locked itself.

"Mom?" Lee's heart pounded. Something heavy crashed inside the warehouse. She ran to the door, but no matter how hard she pulled or kicked, it wouldn't open. "Mom!" Frantically, she tapped a message on the wall: _You okay?_

"She can't hear you," a voice said."

Lee turned and found herself facing a strange woman. At first she thought it was Tía Callida. She was wrapped in black robes, with a veil covering her face.

"Tía?" She said.

The woman chuckled, a slow gentle sound, as if she were half asleep. "I am not your guardian. Merely a family resemblance."

"What—what do you want? Where's my mom?"

"Ah…loyal to your mother. How nice. But you see, I have children too…and I understand you will fight them someday. When they try to wake me, you will prevent them. I cannot allow that."

"I don't know you. I don't want to fight anybody."

She muttered like a sleepwalker in a trance,

"A wise choice."

With a chill, Lee realized the woman was, in fact, asleep. Behind the veil, her eyes were closed. But even stranger: her clothes were not made of cloth. They were made of earth—dry black dirt, churning and shifting around her. Her pale sleeping face was barely visible behind a curtain of dust, and Lee had the horrible sense that she had just risen from the grave. If the woman was asleep, Lee wanted her to stay that way. She knew that fully awake, she would be even more terrible.

"I cannot destroy you yet," the woman murmured. "The Fates will not allow it. But they do not protect your mother, and they cannot stop me from breaking your spirit. Remember this night, little hero, when they ask you to oppose me."

"Leave my mother alone!" Fear rose in her throat as the woman shuffled forward. She moved more like an avalanche than a person, a dark wall of earth shifting toward him.

"How will you stop me?" she whispered.

She walked straight through a table, the particles of her body reassembling on the other side.

She loomed over Lee, and she knew she would pass right through her, too. She was the only thing between the lady and her mother.

Her hands caught fire.

A sleepy smile spread across the woman's face, as if she'd already won. Lee screamed with desperation. Her vision turned red. Flames washed over the earthen woman, the walls, the locked doors. And Lee lost consciousness.

When she woke, she was in an ambulance.

The paramedic tried to be kind. She told her the warehouse had burned down. Her mother hadn't made it out. The paramedic said she was sorry, but Lee felt hollow. She'd lost control, just like her mother had warned. Her death was Lee's fault.

Soon the police came to get her, and they weren't as nice. The fire had started in the break room, they said, right where Lee was standing. She'd survived by some miracle, but what kind of child locked the doors of her mother's workplace, knowing she was inside, and started a fire?

Later, her neighbors at the apartment complex told the police what a strange girl she was. They talked about the burned handprints on the picnic table. They'd always known something was wrong with Esperanza Valdez's daughter.

Her relatives wouldn't take her in. Her Aunt Rosa called her a _diablo_ and shouted at the social workers to take her away. So Lee went to her first foster home. A few days later, she ran away. Some foster homes lasted longer than others. She would joke around, make a few friends, pretend that nothing bothered her, but she always ended up running sooner or later. It was the only thing that made the pain better—feeling like she was moving, getting farther and farther away from the ashes of that machine shop.

She'd promised herself she would never play with fire again. She hadn't thought about Tía Callida, or the sleeping woman wrapped in earthen robes, for a long time.

She was almost to the woods when she imagined Tía Callida's voice: _It wasn't your fault, little hero. Our enemy wakes. It's time to stop running_.

"Hera," Lee muttered, "you're not even here, are you? You're in a cage somewhere."

There was no answer.

But now, at least, Lee understood something. Hera had been watching her her entire life. Somehow, she'd known that one day she would need her. Maybe those Fates she mentioned could tell the future. Lee wasn't sure. But she knew she was meant to go on this quest. Jane's prophecy warned them to beware the earth, and Lee knew it had something to do with that sleeping woman in the shop, wrapped in robes of shifting dirt.

 _You'll find your destiny_ , Tía Callida had promised, _and your hard journey will finally make sense._

Lee might find out what that flying boat in her dreams meant. She might meet her father, or even get to avenge her mother's death.

But first things first. She'd promised Jane a flying ride.

Not the boat from her dreams—not yet. There wasn't time to build something that complicated. She needed a quicker solution. She needed a dragon.

She hesitated at the edge of the woods, peering into absolute blackness. Owls hooted, and something far away hissed like a chorus of snakes.

Lee remembered what Wilma Solace had told her: _No one should go in the woods alone, definitely not unarmed_. Lee had nothing—no sword, no flashlight, no help.

She glanced back at the lights of the cabins. She could turn around now and tell everyone she'd been joking. _Psych_! Nate could go on the quest instead. She could stay at camp and learn to be part of the Hephaestus cabin, but she wondered how long it would be before she looked like her bunkmates—sad, dejected, convinced of her own bad luck.

 _They cannot stop me from breaking your spirit,_ the sleeping woman had said _. Remember this night, little hero, when they ask you to oppose me_.

"Believe me, lady," Lee muttered to no one, "I remember. And whoever you are, I'm gonna face-plant you hard, Lee-style."

She took a deep breath and plunged into the forest.


	25. Chapter 24

The woods weren't like anyplace she'd been before. Lee had been raised in a north Houston apartment complex. The wildest things she'd ever seen were that rattlesnake in the cow pasture and her Aunt Rosa in her nightgown, until she was sent to Wilderness School.

Even there, the school had been in the desert. No trees with gnarled roots to trip over. No streams to fall into. No branches casting dark, creepy shadows and owls looking down at her with their big reflective eyes. This was the Twilight Zone.

She stumbled along until she was sure no one back at the cabins could possibly see her. Then, she summoned fire. Flames danced along her fingertips, casting enough light to see. She hadn't tried to keep a sustained burn going since she was five, at that picnic table. Since her mom's death, she'd been too afraid to try anything. Even this tiny fire made her feel guilty.

She kept walking, looking for dragon-type clues—giant footprints, trampled trees, swaths of burning forest. Something that big couldn't exactly sneak around, right? But she saw nada. Once she glimpsed a large, furry shape like a wolf or a bear, but it stayed away from her fire, which was fine by her.

Then, at the bottom of a clearing, she saw the first trap—a hundred-foot-wide crater ringed with boulders.

Lee had to admit it was pretty ingenious. In the center of the depression, a metal vat the size of a hot tub had been filled with bubbly dark liquid—Tabasco sauce and motor oil. On a pedestal suspended over the vat, an electric fan rotated in a circle, spreading the fumes across the forest. Could metal dragons smell?

The vat seemed to be unguarded. But Lee looked closely, and in the dim light of the stars and her handheld fire, she could see the glint of metal beneath the dirt and leaves—a bronze net lining the entire crater. Or maybe see wasn't the right word—she could sense it there, as if the mechanism was emitting heat, revealing itself to her. Six large strips of bronze stretched out from the vat like the spokes of a wheel. They would be pressure sensitive, Lee guessed. As soon as the dragon stepped on one, the net would spring closed, and voilà—one gift wrapped monster.

Lee edged closer. She put her foot on the nearest trigger strip. As she expected, nothing happened. They had to have set the net for something really heavy. Otherwise they could catch an animal, human, smaller monster, whatever. She doubted there was anything else as heavy as a metal dragon in these woods. At least, she hoped there wasn't.

She picked her way down the crater and approached the vat. The fumes were almost overpowering, and her eyes started watering. She remembered a time when Tía Callida (Hera, whatever) had made her chop jalapeños in the kitchen and she'd gotten the juice in her eyes. Serious pain. But of course Tía had been like, "Endure it, little hero. The Aztecs of your mother's homeland used to punish bad children by holding them over a fire filled with chili peppers. They raised many heroes that way."

A total psycho, that lady. Lee was _so_ glad she was on a quest to rescue her.

Tía Callida would've loved this vat, because it was way worse than jalapeño juice. Leo looked for a trigger—something that would disable the net. She didn't see anything.

She had a moment of panic. Nate had said there were several traps like this in the woods, and they were planning more. What if the dragon had already stepped into another one? How could Lee possibly find them all?

She continued to search, but she didn't see any release mechanism. No large button labeled off. It occurred to her that there might not be one. She started to despair—and then she heard the sound.

It was more of a tremor—the deep sort of rumbling you hear in your gut rather than your ears. It gave her the jitters, but she didn't look around for the source. She just kept examining the trap, thinking, Must be a long way off. It's pounding its way through the woods. I gotta hurry.

Then she heard a grinding snort, like steam forced out of a metal barrel.

Her neck tingled. She turned slowly. At the edge of the pit, fifty feet away, two glowing red eyes were staring right at her. The creature gleamed in the moonlight, and Lee couldn't believe something that huge had sneaked up on her so fast. Too late, she realized its gaze was fixed on the fire in her hand, and she extinguished the flames.

She could still see the dragon just fine. It was about sixty feet long, snout to tail, its body made of interlocking bronze plates. Its claws were the size of butcher knives, and its mouth was lined with hundreds of dagger-sharp metal teeth. Steam came out of its nostrils. It snarled like a chain saw cutting through a tree. It could've bitten Lee in half, easy, or stomped her flat. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, except for one problem that completely ruined Lee's plan.

"You don't have wings," Lee said with a small frown.

The dragon's snarl died. It tilted its head as if to say, _Why aren't you running away in terror?_

"Hey, no offense," Lee said. "You're amazing! Good god, who made you? Are you hydraulic or nuclear-powered or what? But if it was me, I would've put wings on you. What kind of dragon doesn't have wings? I guess maybe you're too heavy to fly? I should've thought of that."

The dragon snorted, more confused now. It was supposed to trample Lee. This conversation thing wasn't part of the plan. It took a step forward, and Lee shouted, "No!"

The dragon snarled again.

"It's a trap, bronze brain," Lee said. "They're trying to catch you."

The dragon opened its mouth and blew fire. A column of white-hot flames billowed over Lee, more than she'd ever tried to endure before. She felt as if she were being hosed down with a powerful, very hot fire hose. It stung a little, but she stood her ground. When the flames died, she was perfectly fine. Even her clothes were okay, which Lee didn't understand, but for which she was grateful. She liked her army jacket, and having her pants and shirt seared off would've been pretty embarrassing.

The dragon stared at Lee. Its face didn't actually change, being made of metal and all, but Lee thought she could read its expression: _Why no crispy critter?_ A spark flew out of its neck like it was about to short-circuit.

"You can't burn me," Lee said, trying to sound stern and calm. She'd never had a dog before, but she talked to the dragon the way she thought you'd talk to a dog. "Stay, boy. Don't come any closer. I don't want you to get caught. See, they think you're broken and have to be scrapped. But I don't believe that. I can fix you if you'll let me—"

The dragon creaked, roared, and charged. The trap sprang. The floor of the crater erupted with a sound like a thousand trash can lids banging together. Dirt and leaves flew, metal net flashing. Lee was knocked off her feet, turned upside down, and doused in Tabasco sauce and oil. She found herself sandwiched between the vat and the dragon as it thrashed, trying to free itself from the net that had wrapped around them both.

The dragon blew flames in every direction, lighting up the sky and setting trees on fire. Oil and sauce burned all over them. It didn't hurt Lee, but it left a nasty taste in her mouth.

"Will you stop that!" she yelled.

The dragon kept squirming. Lee realized she would get crushed if she didn't move. It wasn't easy, but she managed to wriggle out from between the dragon and the vat. She squirmed her way through the net. Fortunately the holes were plenty big enough for a skinny kid.

She ran to the dragon's head. It tried to snap at her, but its teeth were tangled in the mesh. It blew fire again, but seemed to be running out of energy. This time the flames were only orange. They sputtered before they even reached Lee's face.

"Listen, dude," Lee said, "you're just going to show them where you are. Then they'll come and break out the acid and the metal cutters. Is that what you want?"

The dragon's jaw made a creaking sound, like it was trying to talk.

"Okay, then," Lee said. "You'll have to trust me."

And Lee set to work.

ΔΩΔΩΔΩΔΩΔΩΔΩΔΩΔΩΔΩΔΩΔΩΔΩΔ

It took her almost an hour to find the control panel. It was right behind the dragon's head, which made sense. She'd elected to keep the dragon in the net, because it was easier to work with the dragon constrained, but the dragon didn't like it.

"Hold still!" Lee scolded.

The dragon made another creaking sound that might've been a whimper.

Lee examined the wires inside the dragon's head. She was distracted by a sound in the woods, but when she looked up it was just a tree spirit—a dryad, Lee thought they were called—putting out the flames in her branches. Fortunately, the dragon hadn't started an all-out forest fire, but still the dryad wasn't too pleased. The girl's dress was smoking. She smothered the flames with a silky blanket, and when she saw Lee looking at her, she made a gesture that was probably very rude in Dryad. Then she disappeared in a green poof of mist.

Lee returned her attention to the wiring. It was ingenious, definitely, and it made sense to her. This was the motor control relay. This processed sensory input from the eyes. This disk...

"Ha," she said. "Well, no wonder."

 _Creak_? the dragon asked with its jaw.

"You've got a corroded control disk. Probably regulates your higher reasoning circuits, right? Rusty brain, man. No wonder you're a little...confused." She almost said crazy, but she caught herself.

"I wish I had a replacement disk, but...this is a complicated piece of circuitry. I'm gonna have to take it out and clean it. Only be a minute." She pulled out the disk, and the dragon went absolutely still. The glow died in its eyes. Lee slid off its back and began polishing the disk. She mopped up some oil and Tabasco sauce with his sleeve, which helped cut through the grime, but the more she cleaned, the more concerned she got. Some of the circuits were beyond repair. She could make it better, but not perfect. For that, she'd need a completely new disk, and she had no idea how to build one.

She tried to work quickly. She wasn't sure how long the dragon's control disk could be off without damaging it—maybe forever—but she didn't want to take chances. Once she'd done the best she could, she climbed back up to the dragon's head and started cleaning the wiring and gearboxes getting herself filthy in the process.

"Clean hands, dirty equipment," she muttered, something her mother used to say. By the time she was through, her hands were black with grease and her clothes looked like she'd just lost a mud-wrestling contest, but the mechanisms looked a lot better. She slipped in the disk, connected the last wire, and sparks flew. The dragon shuddered. Its eyes began to glow.

"Better?" Lee asked.

The dragon made a sound like a high-speed drill. It opened its mouth and all its teeth rotated.

"I guess that's a yes. Hold on, I'll free you."

Another thirty minutes to find the release clamps for the net and untangle the dragon, but finally it stood and shook the last bit of netting off its back. It roared triumphantly and shot fire at the sky.

"Seriously," Lee said. "Could you not show off?"

 _Creak_? the dragon asked.

"You need a name," Lee decided. "I'm calling you Festus."

The dragon whirred its teeth and grinned. At least Lee hoped it was a grin.

"Cool," Lee said. "But we still have a problem, because you don't have wings."

Festus tilted his head and snorted steam. Then he lowered his back in an unmistakable gesture. He wanted Lee to climb on.

"Where we going?" Lee asked.

But she was too excited to wait for an answer. She climbed onto the dragon's back, and Festus bounded off into the woods.

 **A/N: oh my gods I'm so so so so so so sorry I haven't updated In forever blah so now I'm just gonna upload a whole bunch of chapters ;-; so sorry about that! Hope you enjoyed this one.**


	26. Chapter twenty five

Chapter 25: Lee

Lee lost track of time and all sense of direction. It seemed impossible the woods could be so deep and wild, but the dragon traveled until the trees were like skyscrapers and the canopy of leaves completely blotted out the stars. Even the fire in Lee's hand couldn't have lit the way, but the dragon's glowing red eyes acted like headlights. Finally they crossed a stream and came to a dead end, a limestone cliff a hundred feet tall—a solid, sheer mass the dragon couldn't possibly climb.

Festus stopped at the base and lifted one leg like a dog pointing.

"What is it?" Lee slid to the ground. She walked up to the cliff—nothing but solid rock. The dragon kept pointing.

"It's not going to move out of your way," Lee told him. The loose wire in the dragon's neck sparked, but otherwise he stayed still. Lee put her hand on the cliff. Suddenly her fingers smoldered. Lines of fire spread from her fingertips like ignited gunpowder, sizzling across the limestone. The burning lines raced across the cliff face until they had outlined a glowing red door five times as tall as Lee. She backed up and the door swung open, disturbingly silently for such a big slab of rock.

"Perfectly balanced," she muttered. "That's some first-rate engineering."

The dragon unfroze and marched inside, as if he were coming home.

Lee stepped through, and the door began to close. She had a moment of panic, remembering that night in the machine shop long ago, when she'd been locked in. What if she got stuck in here? But then lights flickered on—a combination of electric fluorescents and wall-mounted torches. When Lee saw the cavern, she forgot about leaving.

"Festus," she muttered. "What is this place?"

The dragon stomped to the center of the room, leaving tracks in the thick dust, and curled up on a large circular platform.

The cave was the size of an airplane hangar, with endless worktables and storage cages, rows of garage-sized doors along either wall, and staircases that led up to a network of catwalks high above. Equipment was everywhere—hydraulic lifts, welding torches, hazard suits, air-spades, forklifts, plus something that looked suspiciously like a nuclear reaction chamber. Bulletin boards were covered with tattered, faded blueprints. And weapons, armor, shields—war supplies all over the place, a lot of them only partially finished.

Hanging from chains far above the dragon's platform was an old tattered banner almost too faded to read. The letters were Greek, but Lee somehow knew what they said: bunker 9.

Did that mean nine as in the Hephaestus cabin, or nine as in there were eight others? Lee looked at Festus, still curled up on the platform, and it occurred to her that the dragon looked so content because it was home. It had probably been built on that pad.

"Do the other kids know...?" Lee's question died as she asked it. Clearly, this place had been abandoned for decades. Cobwebs and dust covered everything. The floor revealed no footprints except for his, and the huge paw prints of the dragon. She was the first one in this bunker since...since a long time ago. Bunker 9 had been abandoned with a lot of projects half finished on the tables. Locked up and forgotten, but why?

Lee looked at a map on the wall—a battle map of camp, but the paper was as cracked and yellow as onionskin. A date at the bottom read, 1864.

"No way," she muttered.

Then she spotted a blueprint on a nearby bulletin board, and her heart almost leaped out of her throat. She ran to the worktable and stared up at a white-line drawing almost faded beyond recognition: a Greek ship from several different angles. Faintly scrawled words underneath it read: PROPHECY? UNCLEAR. FLIGHT?

It was the ship she'd seen in her dreams—the flying ship. Someone had tried to build it here, or at least sketched out the idea. Then it was left, forgotten...a prophecy yet to come. And weirdest of all, the ship's figurehead was exactly like the one Lee had drawn when she was five—the head of a dragon.

"Looks like you, Festus," she murmured. "That's creepy."

The figurehead gave her an uneasy feeling, but Lee's mind spun with too many other questions to think about it for long. She touched the blueprint, hoping she could take it down to study, but the paper crackled at her touch, so she left it alone. She looked around for other clues. No boats. No pieces that looked like parts of this project, but there were so many doors and storerooms to explore.

Festus snorted like he was trying to get Lee's attention, reminding her they didn't have all night. It was true. Lee figured it would be morning in a few hours, and she'd gotten completely sidetracked. She'd saved the dragon, but it wasn't going to help her on the quest. She needed something that would fly.

Festus nudged something toward her—a leather tool belt that had been left next to his construction pad. Then the dragon switched on his glowing red eye beams and turned them toward the ceiling. Lee looked up to where the spotlights were pointing, and yelped when he recognized the shapes hanging above them in the darkness.

"Festus," she said in a small voice. "We've got work to do."

 **A/N: Sorry it was so short!**


	27. Chapter twenty six

Chapter 26: Jane

Jane dreamed of wolves. She stood in a clearing in the middle of a redwood forest. In front of her rose the ruins of a stone mansion. Low gray clouds blended with the ground fog, and cold rain hung in the air. A pack of large gray beasts milled around her, brushing against her legs, snarling and baring their teeth. They gently nudged her toward the ruins.

Jane had no desire to become the world's largest dog biscuit, so she decided to do what they wanted.

The ground squelched under her boots as she walked. Stone spires of chimneys, no longer attached attached to anything, rose up like totem poles. The house must've been enormous once, multi-storied with massive log walls and a soaring gabled roof, but now nothing remained but its stone skeleton. Jane passed under a crumbling doorway and found herself in a kind of courtyard.

Before her was a drained reflecting pool, long and rectangular. Jane couldn't tell how deep it was, because the bottom was filled with mist. A dirt path led all the way around, and the house's uneven walls rose on either side. Wolves paced under the archways of rough red volcanic stone. At the far end of the pool sat a giant she-wolf, several feet taller than Jane. Her eyes glowed silver in the fog, and her coat was the same color as the rocks—warm chocolaty red.

"I know this place," Jane said.

The wolf regarded her. She didn't exactly speak, but Jane could understand her. The movements of her ears and whiskers, the flash of her eyes, the way she curled her lips—all of these were part of her language.

 _Of course_ , the she-wolf said. _You began your journey here as a pup. Now you must find your way back. A new quest, a new start._

"That isn't fair," Jane said. But as soon as she spoke, she knew there was no point complaining to the she-wolf.

Wolves didn't feel sympathy. They never expected fairness. The wolf said: _Conquer or die. This is always our way._

Jason wanted to protest that she couldn't conquer if she didn't know who she was, or where she was supposed to go. But she knew this wolf. Her name was simply Lupa, the Mother Wolf, the greatest of her kind. Long ago she'd found her in this place, protected her, nurtured her, chosen her, but if Jane showed weakness, she would tear her to shreds. Rather than being her pup, she would become her dinner. In the wolf pack, weakness was not an option.

"Can you guide me?" Jane asked.

Lupa made a rumbling noise deep in her throat, and the mist in the pool dissolved. At first Jane wasn't sure what she was seeing. At opposite ends of the pool, two dark spires had erupted from the cement floor like the drill bits of some massive tunneling machines boring through the surface. Jane couldn't tell if the spires were made of rock or petrified vines, but they were formed of thick tendrils that came together in a point at the top. Each spire was about five feet tall, but they weren't identical. The one closest to Jane was darker and seemed like a solid mass, its tendrils fused together. As she watched, it pushed a little farther out of the earth and expanded a little wider.

On Lupa's end of the pool, the second spire's tendrils were more open, like the bars of a cage. Inside, Jason could vaguely see a misty figure struggling, shifting within its confines.

"Hera," Jane said.

The she-wolf growled in agreement. The other wolves circled the pool, their fur standing up on their backs as they snarled at the spires.

 _The enemy has chosen this place to awaken her most powerful son, the giant king,_ Lupa said. _Our sacred place, where demigods are claimed—the place of death or life. The burned house. The house of the wolf. It is an abomination. You must stop her._

"Her?" Jane was confused. "You mean, Hera?"

The she-wolf gnashed her teeth impatiently. _Use your senses, pup. I care nothing for Juno, but if she falls, our enemy wakes. And that will be the end for all of us. You know this place. You can find it again. Cleanse our house. Stop this before it is too late._

The dark spire grew slowly larger, like the bulb of some horrible flower. Jane sensed that if it ever opened, it would release something she did not want to meet.

"Who am I?" Jane asked the she-wolf. "At least tell me that."

Wolves don't have much of a sense of humor, but Jane could tell the question amused Lupa, as if Jane were a cub just trying out her claws, practicing to be the alpha.

 _You are our saving grace, as always_. The she-wolf curled her lip, as if she had just made a clever joke. _Do not fail, daughter of Jupiter._

 **A/N: Yay! This chapter was still a little short, but ONLY because the chapter in the app was was six pages on my phone. Soooo...yeah.**


	28. Chapter twenty seven

Chapter 27: Jane

Jane woke to the sound of thunder. Then she remembered where she was. It was always thundering in Cabin One.

Above her cot, the domed ceiling was decorated with a blue-and-white mosaic like a cloudy sky. The cloud tiles shifted across the ceiling, changing from white to black. Thunder rumbled through the room, and gold tiles flashed like veins of lightning.

Except for the cot that the other campers had brought her, the cabin had no regular furniture—no chairs, tables, or dressers. As far as Jane could tell, it didn't even have a bathroom. The walls were carved with alcoves, each holding a bronze brazier or a golden eagle statue on a marble pedestal. In the center of the room, a twenty-foot-tall, full-color statue of Zeus in classic Greek robes stood with a shield at his side and a lightning bolt raised, ready to smite somebody.

Jane studied the statue, looking for anything she had in common with the Lord of the Sky. Black hair? Nope. Grumbly expression? Well, maybe. Beard? _No thanks_. In his robes and sandals, Zeus looked like a really buff, really angry hippie. Yeah, Cabin One. A big honor, the other campers had told him. Sure, if you liked sleeping in a cold temple by yourself with Hippie Zeus frowning down at you all night.

Jane got up and rubbed her neck. Her whole body was stiff from bad sleep and summoning lightning. That little trick last night hadn't been as easy as she had let on. It had almost made her pass out.

Next to the cot, new clothes were laid out for her: jeans, sneakers, and an orange Camp Half-Blood shirt. She definitely needed a change of clothes, but looking down at her tattered purple shirt, she was reluctant to change. It felt wrong somehow, putting on the camp shirt. She still couldn't believe she belonged here, despite everything they'd told her.

She thought about her dream, hoping more memories would come back to her about Lupa, or that ruined house in the redwoods. She knew she'd been there before. The wolf was real. But her head ached when she tried to remember. The marks on her forearm seemed to burn. If she could find those ruins, she could find her past. Whatever was growing inside that rock spire, Jane had to stop it.

She looked at Hippie Zeus.

"You're welcome to help."

The statue said nothing.

"Thanks, Pops," Jane muttered.

She changed clothes and checked her reflection in Zeus's shield. Her face looked watery and strange in the metal, like she was dissolving in a pool of gold. Definitely she didn't look as good as Peter had last night after he'd suddenly been transformed.

Jane still wasn't sure how she felt about that. She'd acted like an idiot, announcing in front of everyone that he was hot. Not like there'd been anything wrong with him before. Sure, he looked great after Aphrodite zapped him, but he also didn't look like himself, not comfortable with the attention. Jane had felt bad for him.

Maybe that was crazy, considering he'd just been claimed by a goddess and turned into the most handsome guy at camp. Everybody had started fawning over him, telling him how amazing he was and how obviously he should be the one who went on the quest—but that attention had nothing to do with who he was. New suit, new hair, glowing pink aura, and boom: suddenly people liked him. Jane felt like she understood that.

Last night when she'd called down lightning, the other campers' reactions had seemed familiar to her. She was pretty sure she'd been dealing with that for a long time—people looking at her in awe just because she was the daughter of Zeus, treating her special, but it didn't have anything to do with her. Nobody cared about her, just her big scary daddy standing behind her with the doomsday bolt, as if to say, _Respect this kid or eat voltage!_

After the campfire, when people started heading back to their cabins, Jane had gone up to Peter and formally asked him to come with her on the quest.

He'd still been in a state of shock, but he nodded, rubbing his arms, which must've been cold in that thin suit.

"Aphrodite took my snowboarding jacket," he muttered. "Mugged by my own mom."

In the first row of the amphitheater, Jane found a blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. "We'll get you a new jacket," she promised.

He managed a smile. She wanted to wrap her arms around him, but she restrained herself. She didn't want him to think she was as shallow as everyone else—trying to make a move on him because he'd turned all handsome.

She was glad Peter was going with her on the quest. Jane had tried to act brave at the campfire, but it was just that—an act. The idea of going up against an evil force powerful enough to kidnap Hera scared her witless, especially since she didn't even know her own past. She'd need help, and it felt right: Peter should be with her. But things were already complicated without figuring out how much she liked him, and why. She'd already messed with his head enough.

She slipped on her new shoes, ready to get out of that cold, empty cabin. Then she spotted something she hadn't noticed the night before. A brazier had been moved out of one of the alcoves to create a sleeping niche, with a bedroll, a backpack, even some pictures taped to the wall.

Jane walked over. Whoever had slept there, it had been a long time ago. The bedroll smelled musty. The backpack was covered with a thin film of dust. Some of the photos once taped to the wall had lost their stickiness and fallen to the floor.

One picture showed Arthur—much younger, maybe eight, but Jane could tell it was him: same blond hair and gray eyes, same distracted look like he was thinking a million things at once. He stood next to a sandy-haired girl about fourteen or fifteen, with a mischievous smile and ragged leather armor over a T-shirt. She was pointing to an alley behind them, like she was telling the photographer, Let's go meet things in a dark alley and kill them! A second photo showed Arthur and the same girl sitting at a campfire, laughing hysterically.

Finally Jane picked up one of the photos that had fallen. It was a strip of pictures like you'd take in a do-it-yourself photo booth: Arthur and the sandy-haired girl, but with another girl between them. She was maybe fifteen, with black hair—short and choppy like Peter's—a black leather jacket, and silver jewelry, so she looked kind of goth; but she was caught mid-laugh, and it was clear she was with her two best friends.

"That's Thalia," someone said.

Jane turned.

Arthur was peering over her shoulder. His expression was sad, like the picture brought back hard memories.

"She's the other child of Zeus who lived here—but not for long. Sorry, I should've knocked."

"It's fine," Jane said. "Not like I think of this place as home."

Arthur was dressed for travel, with a winter coat over his camp clothes, his knife at his belt, and a backpack across his shoulder.

Jane said, "Don't suppose you've changed your mind about coming with us?"

He shook his head.

"You got a good team already. I'm off to look for Paige."

Jane was a little disappointed. She would've appreciated having somebody on the trip who knew what they were doing, so she wouldn't feel like she was leading Peter and Lee off a cliff.

"Hey, you'll do fine," Arthur promised. "Something tells me this isn't your first quest."

Jane had a vague suspicion he was right, but that didn't make her feel any better. Everyone seemed to think she was so brave and confident, but they didn't see how lost she really felt. How could they trust her when even she didn't know who she was?

She looked at the pictures of Arthur smiling. She wondered how long it had been since he'd smiled. He must really like this Paige girl to search for her so hard, and that made Jane a little envious. Was anyone searching for her right now? What if somebody cared for her that much and was going out of their mind with worry, and she couldn't even remember her old life?

"You know who I am," she guessed. "Don't you?"

Arthur gripped the hilt of his dagger. He looked for a chair to sit on, but of course there weren't any. "Honestly, Jane...I'm not sure. My best guess, you're a loner. It happens sometimes. For one reason or another, the camp never found you, but you survived anyway by constantly moving around. Trained yourself to fight. Handled the monsters on your own. You beat the odds."

"The first thing Chiron said to me," Jane remembered, "was you should be dead."

"That could be why," Arthur said. "Most demigods would never make it on their own. And a child of Zeus—I mean, it doesn't get any more dangerous than that. The chances of your reaching age fifteen without finding Camp Half-Blood or dying—microscopic. But like I said, it does happen. Thalia ran away when she was young. She survived on her own for years. Even took care of me for a while. So maybe you were a loner too."

Jane held out her arm. "And these marks?"

Arthur glanced at the tattoos. Clearly, they bothered him. "Well, the eagle is the symbol of Zeus, so that makes sense. The twelve lines—maybe they stand for years, if you'd been making them since you were three years old. SPQR--that's the motto of the old Roman Empire: _Senatus Populusque Romanus_ , the Senate and the People of Rome. Though why you would burn that on your own arm, I don't know. Unless you had a really harsh Latin teacher..."

Jane was pretty sure that wasn't the reason. It also didn't seem possible she'd been on her own her whole life. But what else made sense? Arthur had been pretty clear—Camp Half-Blood was the only safe place in the world for demigods.

"I, um...had a weird dream last night," she said. It seemed like a stupid thing to confide, but Arthur didn't look surprised.

"Happens all the time to demigods," he said. "What did you see?"

She told him about the wolves and the ruined house and the two rock spires. As she talked, Arthur started pacing, looking more and more agitated.

"You don't remember where this house is?" he asked.

Jane shook her head. "But I'm sure I've been there before."

"Redwoods," he mused. "Could be northern California. And the she-wolf...I've studied goddesses, spirits, and monsters my whole life. I've never heard of Lupa."

"She said the enemy was a 'her.' I thought maybe it was Hera, but—"

"I wouldn't trust Hera, but I don't think she's the enemy. And that thing rising out of the earth—" Arthur's expression darkened. "You've got to stop it."

"You know what it is, don't you?" She asked. "Or at least, you've got a guess. I saw your face last night at the campfire. You looked at Chiron like it was suddenly dawning on you, but you didn't want to scare us."

Arthur hesitated. "Jane, the thing about prophecies...the more you know, the more you try to change them, and that can be disastrous. Chiron believes it's better that you find your own path, find out things in your own time. If he'd told me everything he knew before my first quest with Paige...I've got to admit, I'm not sure I would've been able to go through with it. For your quest, it's even more important."

"That bad, huh?"

"Not if you succeed. At least...I hope not."

"But I don't even know where to start. Where am I supposed to go?"

"Follow the monsters," Arthur suggested.

Jane thought about that. The storm spirit who'd attacked her at the Grand Canyon had said she was being recalled to her boss. If Jane could track the storm spirits, she might be able to find the person controlling them. And maybe that would lead him to Hera's prison.

"Okay," she said. "How do I find storm winds?"

"Personally, I'd ask a wind god," Arthur said. "Aeolus is the master of all the winds, but he's a little...unpredictable. No one finds him unless he wants to be found. I'd try one of the four seasonal wind gods that work for Aeolus. The nearest one, the one who has the most dealings with heroes, is Boreas, the North Wind."

"So if I looked him up on Google maps—"

"Oh, he's not hard to find," Arthur promised. "He settled in North America like all the other gods. So of course he picked the oldest northern settlement, about as far north as you can go."

"Maine?" Jane guessed.

"Farther."

Jane tried to envision a map. What was farther north than Maine? The oldest northern settlement...

"Canada," she decided. "Quebec."

Arthur smiled. "I hope you speak French."

Jane actually felt a spark of excitement. Quebec—at least now she had a goal. Find the North Wind, track down the storm spirits, find out who they worked for and where that ruined house was. Free Hera. All in four days. Cake.

"Thanks, Arthur." She looked at the photo booth pictures still in her hand. "So, um...you said it was dangerous being a child of Zeus. What happened to Thalia?"

"Oh, she's fine," Arthur said. "She became a Hunter of Artemis—one of the handmaidens of the goddess. They roam around the country killing monsters. We don't see them at camp very often."

Jane glanced over at the huge statue of Zeus. She understood why Thalia had slept in this alcove. It was the only place in the cabin not in Hippie Zeus's line of sight. And even that hadn't been enough. She'd chosen to follow Artemis and be part of a group rather than stay in this cold drafty temple alone with her twenty-foot-tall dad—Jane's dad—glowering down at her. _Eat voltage_! Jane didn't have any trouble understanding Thalia's feelings. She randomly wondered if there was a Hunters group for guys.

"Who's the other kid in the photo?" She asked. "The sandy-haired girl."

Arthur's expression tightened. Touchy subject.

"That's Lucia," he said. "She's dead now."

Jane decided it was best not to ask more, but the way Arthur said Lucia's name, she wondered if maybe Paige Jackson wasn't the only girl Arthur had ever liked.

She focused again on Thalia's face. She kept thinking this photo of her was important. She was missing something.

Jane felt a strange sense of connection to this other child of Zeus—someone who might understand her confusion, maybe even answer some questions. But another voice inside her, an insistent whisper, said: _Dangerous. Stay away_.

"How old is she now?" she asked.

"Hard to say. She was a tree for a while. Now she's immortal."

"What?"

Her expression must've been pretty good, because Arthur laughed.

"Don't worry. It's not something all children of Zeus go through. It's a long story, but...well, she was out of commission for a long time. If she'd aged regularly, she'd be in her twenties now, but she still looks the same as in that picture, like she's about...well, about your age. Fifteen or sixteen?"

Something the she-wolf had said in her dream nagged at Jane. She found herself asking, "What's her last name?"

Arthur looked uneasy. "She didn't use a last name, really. If she had to, she'd use her mom's, but they didn't get along. Thalia ran away when she was pretty young."

Jane waited.

"Grace," Arthur said. "Thalia Grace."

Jane's fingers went numb. The picture fluttered to the floor.

"You okay?" Arthur asked.

A shred of memory had ignited—maybe a tiny piece that Hera had forgotten to steal. Or maybe she'd left it there on purpose—just enough for her to remember that name, and know that digging up her past was terribly, terribly dangerous.

 _You should be dead_ , Chiron had said. It wasn't a comment about Jane beating the odds as a loner. Chiron knew something specific—something about Jane's family.

The she-wolf's words in her dream finally made sense to her, her clever joke at Jane's expense. She could imagine Lupa growling a wolfish laugh.

"What is it?" Arthur pressed.

Jane couldn't keep this to herself. It would kill her, and she had to get Arthur's help. If he knew Thalia, maybe he could advise her.

"You have to swear not to tell anyone else," she said.

"Jane—"

"Swear it," she urged. "Until I figure out what's going on, what this all means—"

She rubbed the burned tattoos on her forearm. "You have to keep a secret."

Arthur hesitated, but his curiosity won out. "All right. Until you tell me it's okay, I won't share what you say with anyone else. I swear on the River Styx."

Thunder rumbled, even louder than usual for the cabin.

 _You are our saving Grace_ , the wolf had snarled.

Jane picked up the photo from the floor.

"My last name is Grace," she said. "This is my sister."

Arthur turned pale. Jane could see him wrestling with dismay, disbelief, anger. He thought she was lying. Her claim was impossible. And part of her felt the same way, but as soon as she spoke the words, she knew they were true.

Then the doors of the cabin burst open. Half a dozen campers spilled in, led by the half-bald girl from Iris, Blaire.

"Hurry!" She said, and Jane couldn't tell if her expression was excitement or fear.

"The dragon is back."


End file.
